Ryan Moore has been doggedly determined to make the World Foosball Tour the best it can be, especially for the players. During the 2026 National Championship we sat down to get his take on the progress.
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[00:01:55] Visit www.original-leonhardt-usa.com and use promo code FoosTalk to save 10% off your purchase price. And where are we? We're right here. It's the 2026 World Foosball Tour National Championship and North American Cup. Here we are in the skybox on Foos Talk Live. We're a little early tonight. I hope you don't mind.
[00:02:24] But I thought, you know, we'd get it in before the big action happens this evening. I want to welcome, of course, the man that made this all possible. The thing that's happening at the moment, this world foosball tour. Once again, welcome back to the microphone, Brian Moore. Yes, sir. How's it going, buddy? It's going well, dude. It's an absolute pleasure and a privilege to be here today. This entire, what, I've got here on Thursday.
[00:02:52] It feels like about two weeks at this point. Yeah. I mean, you've got the best seat in the room as well. I mean, you're overseeing everything. So it's super cool out there. This might be one of the coolest places you got to have as a bigger time. You're absolutely correct about that. Can we import this no matter where we go? We can import this next year, potentially. All right. Nice. Nice. So, okay. I mean, we're just about to the finals of open doubles, and it's been an exciting weekend.
[00:03:19] Summing up in one sentence, how's it gone for you? Man, enlightening. You know, it's big. This is a big weekend. This is so much bigger of a weekend than I ever thought it could have been. Okay. For, you know, for mentally, for progression, for confidence, for so many different things. It's been very refreshing because Vegas was a bit of a lower vibe for us because some things didn't go right. You know, the software was tough.
[00:03:50] The room was too big. It looked empty, even though we still had a really good turnout. So we just made a couple little errors, and we had, you know, a rough software at that time. So it was a brutal tournament. So that lowered our energy pretty well. It didn't stop us, but, you know, it was kind of, we've been on a straight upward high since we started WFT. And that was the first, like, real smack in the face. We're like, oh, God. I think the TKO was a little bit problematic, but nothing compared to Vegas.
[00:04:15] So this has been extremely refreshing because we are now on a better track than we've ever been at ever before with this tournament. This tournament showed us internally that things are about to be so much better. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I have to say kudos, man, because the play software this weekend has been amazing. Yeah. WFT play, man. That's Reed Rector. That's the combination of Reed Rector.
[00:04:44] We've had many people actually. Maryam Ali helped a little bit with it. You know, Kenneth was there in the very beginning helping. Yeah. And, you know, we have other people involved as well. But it's now mainly Reed at the, you know, it's the steering wheel of it all. And then you got my advice, right? You got my like critiquing and like, you know, I think we need to do this and that. So, yep. But Reed is doing a lot of the he's a creator. He's a visionary just like I am.
[00:05:12] So, yeah, it's been pretty sick to like team up with him. And I honestly feel like me and him are just going to absolutely conquer the world and potentially even beyond foosball. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Boy, I'd love to hear more about that. Yeah. No, I mean, it's rare. Like, you know, I'm obviously like, you know, I'm a business guy and, you know, I see the world from a little bit different of an angle. But like it's rare to find people like Reed. He is genuinely smart. He has zero ego but insane confidence. Yeah. And it's a rare trait.
[00:05:42] You know, usually confidence comes with ego. Oh. They come kind of hand in hand. Typically. Right. Even me, like I'm confident, but I also have ego. Not in a bad way, but, you know, I have ego. I like myself. We love your ego on the table. Let's put it that way. But Reed, he's so confident that that's what makes him powerful is he'll spit the ideas out there. And I'll be like, well, look, Reed, that's not possible because of this, this, this, this stuff he doesn't know. And he's like, he's like valid, valid point.
[00:06:12] What about this? And I'm like, you know, that might be something we could talk about. You do that too well. I'm sorry. Yeah. But it's literally Reed, you know? And so, yeah, play WFT play. I can confidently say, I don't even care if it's not biased at this point. It's the best software on the market. Yeah. Without question. Now we have still a few bugs that we're working through, but these bugs are tiny. Yeah. They get in squashed in the middle of the tournament. The efficiency of this tournament has surpassed any tournament that's ever existed.
[00:06:42] In my opinion. The tablets are a big part of that. We have not had one person in the field verifying, and yet this tournament has ran silky smooth. So smooth. Yeah. It's, first of all, I have to kudos to the tablets at the end of the table. That is so cool. It made it so easy to just walk up to your pin number in. I'm here. Yep. Done. Yep. And then you're done. You know, you win the match, whatever, put your pin number in. Yeah. Walk away. Yeah. It was one of the biggest problems and the efficiency of foosball.
[00:07:12] And, you know, we had talked about this tablet system for a long time, but what was amazing was Reed came to Kentucky like 10 days before this tournament just to hang out with us, see the new World Food Ball Tour shop. Okay. And work on the software and work alongside us to prepare for this tournament because this tournament was really the testing grounds for Worlds. Yeah. Okay. So the stuff we implemented at this tournament, we were perfecting it, and we're not going
[00:07:38] to be implementing too, too much more before Worlds because we want Worlds to be silky smooth. Gotcha. So we have a few little things we're putting in there, but nothing that's going to be like going to just derail the software. There's a, it seems like a logical progression to things that have been happening over the year. What is it? Year and six months now since you guys first kicked off the World Foosball Tour. Yeah. It's incremental each time. And there's improvements and an additional, like this, this, like I say, the check-in thing is just. Let me finish that real quick.
[00:08:07] So he came in 10 days before the tournament and we talked about this, this tablet, you know, a couple of times throughout our, you know, process of figuring out what this software is going to actually do for the game. Yep. And I said, Reed, I really want to get this implemented for Worlds. Like I want this thing implemented by Worlds. I said, but the only way we're gonna be able to do that is if we do it here at Nationals and really test it. Yep. And so we're one week before this tournament and he said, and I said, can you code this into the software? Can we go ahead and move this up the priority list and deprioritize a few things?
[00:08:36] And he's like, I think so. Wow. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to order the tablets. A week away from the tournament. I'm going to order the tablets. I'm going to, we're going to order all the, you know, we have our own wifi router system in here now. We can do like 400 devices off it. Wow. You know, we have backup hotspots now in which the whole, you know, internet went down at the hotel. We had our backup hotspot that we deployed right away. I didn't know about that. Yeah. And so, you know, we wanted to deploy it here so that we could work the bugs out. Yeah. And we worked a lot of the bugs out.
[00:09:05] There's still a few little ones, but nothing massive. I mean, as far as like an effective rate, they were like 90, 95, 94, 95% effective. Awesome. Very, very little issues. A couple of little, like I said, bugs, but we implemented it in one week. Yeah. That's, that's extraordinary. We, we, we, we talked about it, but we really defined it, what it's going to look like, how it's going to work, how it's going to interface on the software. It was deployed in one week. That is brave. Right there. That's bravery. Right.
[00:09:33] If we didn't do it here, we wouldn't have it at worlds and worlds where we're going to, we want that term to be the damn best tournament that anybody's ever went to in their entire life. Cause last year probably was for most people. Uh, and we want to continue raising that bar. Yeah. No question. So, and everybody talks about it now. I, I, if, if I'm having discussions with people, but you know, what's, what's your tour like this year? What do you, what, what, what, uh, stops you going to make? And I always finish with, you have to go to worlds. Yeah.
[00:10:00] You have to get that tournament to be, uh, to a thousand players as fast as we possibly can. Yep. And because it shows a precedence of foosball that has always existed. All we're doing is we're just coming together for the biggest term of the year, the most prestigious term of the year, which by the way, uh, I'll go ahead and drop it for the world for you, Tom, just for you. Okay. Last year's world is going to be aired on ESPN and one month. What? On the Ocho on ESPN. Get out of here.
[00:10:29] Let's just say the contract's not fully signed, but it's in my inbox. Dude. And, uh, whoa. Uh, or, or should be in my inbox every, any day. I haven't got to check my emails, uh, but I'm working with Joe Henslinga. Yes. From the foosballers. I was just thinking about him the other day. In fact, absolutely. No, the guy is an absolute, uh, asset to the foosball world and, and also in a super intelligent, bright mind guy. Oh yeah. Um, and so we're going to be airing it on ESPN, uh, the Ocho the first week of August.
[00:10:58] So just before the first week of August, that's perfect. And wow. And we're going to be filming this year's worlds for next year. Oh man. So we're, we're, we're, we're creating a production. Um, is Joe coming down for that? Is he going to be, Oh, that's fantastic. There's going to be cameras everywhere. He's a good dude. I've spoken to him a few times. Absolutely. Just a great guy. No. And witty smart. He understands production value. He understands what people want. And he's a really cool mix because he understands the foosball community, but at the same time
[00:11:27] he has the eye of a non-foosball player. Yep. He's starting to play a little bit, but he has that eye of like, what would I find is cool? Yeah. Yeah. And he's unbiased. I don't want to know about it. He's unbiased to a foosball player. So he's not going to like, I have to have this view so I can see that exact transition. He's like, I don't care. All I care about was what does a normal person see? And does it look cool? So it's going to be great for exposure for our- That's big news, dude. That's huge. Yeah. It's going to be great exposure for not only the foosball, the World Foosball Tour, also
[00:11:55] Filoro, New Fab, our sponsors that may still come online for Worlds as well. So it's just exposure. It's numbers. And then we're going to be filming for 2027 at Worlds. And then our goal is by 2028, we maybe even have like a multi-show series that gets deployed. So we had this discussion once before, and I've forgotten exactly when it was or what setting, but a reality show based on foosball. Yeah. Yeah. We, me and Joe talked about quite a bit.
[00:12:24] Basically, it'd be the road to Worlds. Okay. Following foosball players throughout the whole year. Yep. Going through their problems. We're thinking like he had a deal back in the day. He was trying to work out with Fox Sports right during COVID and it all went to hell when COVID came in. Of course. But he had them kind of on the hook is the way he put it, that we could do this, XYZ. He could help film it, pay for it, fund it. So here he kind of has contacts with people like that. Yep.
[00:12:52] And what I've always been trying to do with foosball since the day we started is I really wanted to make it production ready, right? We're changing the image so it's production ready so that people can actually, because it's hard to see, like, how can we make this cool? How could it live on TV? Well, guess what? Now you have a beautiful room. You have a beautiful finals area. We're starting to brand it. Yep. Beautifully branded. We have the stuff and we're still getting better at that too, by the way. Okay. We're showing it so now it's becoming more realistic, right?
[00:13:22] So now what we're doing is we're taking the next phase of let's actually start producing this from the front. Let's have the entire post-production scope done before we even start the event. So we know what we're going to get at Worlds. We know how this video is going to be before we even start the event. Now we get every single bit of footage that we need to get. So you're plotting this whole thing out long before it happens. Yeah, yeah. It'll all be plotted like everything for Worlds. And we're showing internally what we can do without a big sports network like Fox Sports or ESPN coming in and doing the filming.
[00:13:52] We're going to show them. See, it's again like we couldn't see this actually being production worthy, but now we've created it internally. The same thing goes for Fox Sports. They're not going to see this as a possibility, but wait, we're going to have something that's going to be in their inbox. It's already produced at their level because we got the right people doing the right jobs. Yeah. So now they go, hmm, this is possible. And then they, you know, they'll add their little things. Well, you know, we probably would want this in there that. That's fine. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:20] But, you know, this is the road to the level of exposure. You know, World Foosball Tour is not an event company. It's a media company. Well, and multimedia. Yeah. And don't get me wrong. We're having the best events in the world, hands down. But all of that is to create the best media. Yeah. You know, and media equates to exposure. Exposure equates to recognition.
[00:14:46] Recognition equates to actual people that are willing to give you money because they get it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. They see the value. Steps. There's steps to get. You can't just go sponsor. Come to me. And it's like, no, no, no, no. We got to. You got to build the value. We got to play the long game here. Yeah. Right. And so that's where we're at. We're like, you know what? We're just going to force this on Ocho. And, you know, and so that's our first like real. We just did last year's worlds and the main.
[00:15:15] It'll be a one hour episode for minutes of airtime. OK. And the first half of it is going to be Sullivan, Hannah, women's singles final and the open doubles final. So both of those will be the first half. And then the second half is going to be Tony and Tommy in the open singles final because the production value was amazing. The whole room was turned off. Yeah. Everything was perfect. Like, you know, Joe was like, this is going to he's like, this is going to be better than like 90 percent of anything on Ocho because of what you guys have already done.
[00:15:44] He said it's really impressive, Ryan, what you guys have been able to do. So he reviewed all the footage. He's already he's already built it almost. He's built the outline of it. Right. He's been doing it for about two weeks. But we gave him all our footage. That's exciting. You have to get all their stuff for like to go on TV. Yeah. Yeah. But we're almost through that entire process and we're going to be signing the contract. And congratulations on that.
[00:16:14] Congratulations to us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Players know what I mean. It's it's the story. You got to tell the story. And of course, Joe Hessling, that's his field. That's what he does. He tells stories. Yeah, exactly. And as long as he understands the value of a story and can convey it visual visually and audibly, man, that's exciting stuff. Yeah. And so, you know, this is all it's all coming together. And that's why this weekend's been so refreshing. And we're actually practicing right now. The media team's practicing for worlds a little bit here.
[00:16:44] Incrementally, small things. OK. We changed a few things in the backside. We're discussing how we do things. Yesterday was kind of a warm up, we'll call it, with open singles and women's singles because we still had so many little issues and this and that. But today, today, the team's much more ready. They've been in the field a lot more. And we'll be prepared for a great open doubles and women's doubles final. Now, this process by which we're working today as we're watching things wind down,
[00:17:12] what's the number one thing you want to get done once this is all packed up and ready to go? What's your what's your next move? Well, there's there's so much going on behind the scenes. There's so many different things that we have not been able to release through the million different. OK, guys, everybody.
[00:17:35] I mean, just just know this is going to be one of the coolest and greatest eras of foosball that's ever existed. And the amount of people that are coming together, it's it is absolutely and it's absolutely insane. The potential that we have here. Yeah. And there's a lot of things that are still in the works that I can't say, but it's it's so cool.
[00:18:00] And it's so motivating and inspirational for me to keep to keep driving this thing to like the next level. And yeah, like it's just the vision is in the possibility of making foosball like highly exposed is it's visible. No, it's impossible for it to not almost get there. Yeah. Yeah. Because we've got the right people. Well, getting involved.
[00:18:26] Here's a quick discussion I wanted to just share with you that had over a couple of adult beverages last evening. Nice. There is a lot of people consider TS 72 through 81 as the golden era of foosball. I agree with that in so many ways. However, if you go 20, 30 years out from now, this this is the second golden era. This is. Yeah.
[00:18:55] And it's it's plain to see it's as plain as the nose in your face that this is what's going on. This is the resurgence. This is the thing that should have happened long, long ago. Yeah. You know, what's really cool about our team, you know, you know, me and my wife, even read now. Josh, none of us was around at that time. Yeah. And that's a great thing. Yep. Because we're not dwelling on the past. Yep. All we know is what we've seen.
[00:19:22] And right now is already the greatest era in foosball. All the possibilities. Right. Today is already in my lifetime. And I mean, I'm not trying to be biased, but if I'm a player, this is the coolest thing that's happened to foosball. Oh, no question. Since the 90s. Yeah. Since I started even, you know, I started playing late, you know, I was like nine or ten. And we're already at a level of like, okay, this is really cool. I mean, there's a lot of people coming out. And, you know, we don't dwell on the past. Yeah.
[00:19:52] We're actually like, this is already level up. So we're inspired. And I think that was a big part of like why Viva failed and why the, you know, tornado failed when they were promoting is because it was a downward hill for them. Yeah. So they were just getting constant negativity mentally. Bad timing. So less people, less people, less people. Like if we even, if the United Foosball League, which we just did a meeting on with the promoters today, if we were at where Viva ended when they shut it down, we'd be like, we're freaking killing it. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? Yeah.
[00:20:21] It's all perspective, you know. By the way, that was there at the meeting on Saturday morning for the United, can I say, the United Foosball League. United Foosball League. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the information that you shared and the way you presented it was pretty, pretty impressive. I've got to say. I tried. I didn't, I didn't prepare the speech. I prepared the presentation, the PowerPoint. Oh, sure. Sure. I didn't prepare the speech. I was like, I'm just going to wing it. I got too much going on to try to prepare for this.
[00:20:49] It's now it's about, okay, here's an opportunity for any club across the country that wants to organize and, and put the WFT brand on their, their club. But it's, yeah. It's like a win-win situation. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, well, we only win if we grow it. Yeah. Obviously. It's actually, it's going to be a loss leader for a long time. Like we're going to be losing money on the league for, until we get to about a hundred paid clubs. Gotcha.
[00:21:18] That'll be the point in which we might hit. We might cross break even. Okay. Maybe. Well, and so we need a, and that's a lot, you know, and, and, and of course we're going to be putting out more information. You know, we're going to have free software for everyone to use. It's going to be very basic, but it's going to be better than everything that's on the market.
[00:21:35] But the upgraded version, which is going to be a hundred bucks a month, that version is going to be the full, you get the full entire play software in its entirety, including the tablet systems, including. Wow. Every tablet systems too. Well, yeah. So the whole point of the hardest part of being a local promoter is the amount of time it takes, the amount of people you have to reach out to all the problems. It costs money. You break even.
[00:22:04] We're eliminating all of that. We're eliminating two to three hours per day per, per league night of your time. You will literally, if it's, if it's a monster or DYP, you'll literally be able to promote to every single player in your area with the one click of a button. That's cool. You'll be able to click one button. The tournament will start and it will be automatic. You will not have to do anything. See, that's amazing. Everything is automatic. The recalls are automatic. The match calling is automatic.
[00:22:32] You are now allowed to be a promoter. A promoter is not supposed to sit behind papers or a computer screen making sure people are playing in chat. Yeah. This is now software is going to send out text and eventually push notifications because we're going to turn into an app here probably maybe before Worlds, but most likely after Worlds. It will now be app on both Apple and Google. We'll have that actually implemented pretty quickly because we built the software to be able to transition fast.
[00:22:57] But, you know, you're now going to be for $100 a month, which for some people that may be like, oh, my God. But you're going to save three hours a league night of labor times four. That's 12 hours a month. Yep. And you're going to have so much more fun. Your good energy is going to spread to your players. You're not going to be stressed. Yep. And you're going to naturally have a better league because people are having more fun and you're going to have better retention. Yeah.
[00:23:24] Beyond that, with the way that we're going to have it to where you can promote, you're going to have more people coming out every single night because you're going to be able to ping them with one click of a button. You'll be able to send a text message out to every single person that is on that list. That's cool. That's really cool. Yeah. And you'll be able to say, hey, guys, Brandon, you know, it's coming out this week. Make sure you come out. Yes. Or they'd have to do a Facebook post, which doesn't get to everyone. I know. That's the thing. We have some players on Facebook and some not. Correct. Text message is the way.
[00:23:53] Normally, you'd have to reach out to everybody. You have to follow up. You have to talk back and forth. Yep. You're spending hours. Do it every week. It's a lot of work. Yeah. We're stopping there. Nice. And the reason why we need $100 is because we need a revenue engine as well. Oh, sure. You know, in order for us to pay for just a fraction of what we're doing, we need a revenue engine as well. Yeah. And so, in my opinion, the $100 is extremely cheap. For some people, they might look at it as expensive. But, hey, it depends.
[00:24:20] If you value your time, if you value the fact that you're increasing attendance, and if you value the vibe that's going to be at your operation, then this is a freaking note right now. If you look at the benefits of it, because it's a total package. Yeah. And if you're just getting into the promotions game, I mean, I just recently assumed command of our promotions in Albany the last couple of years here. And it's been a struggle. It's a learning curve, obviously. Yeah.
[00:24:48] But this would take a lot of the guesswork out of it. Oh, yeah. A lot of the guesswork out of it. When you become part of the growth engine, you can become an upgraded league or an upgraded tournament. You can get the package, get all the technology. But when you actually want to start growing foosball, then you have the entire power of the WFT team behind you. Wow. We'll be doing your marketing for you. We're going to be doing your brand creation for you. That's important, too. Yeah. We're going to be, obviously, doing the league systems.
[00:25:16] And I said it in that meeting. I'll say it until I'm blue in the face. League operators should make money. Yeah. They should make money. Okay. They should not be voluntary. You know why? Because if people make money, there's going to be more people that do it. Yeah. No question. Yeah. So why wouldn't we go ahead and make it for profit? That's why America is America's capitalist. Yeah. Yeah. People make money. They innovate. It's also a lot of labor, man. It's, you know, it's not anymore. I think about a lot of this. Not anymore. Yeah. Right?
[00:25:43] Well, a lot of the guys that I talk to who have to, you know, set up tables, especially if they're going to do like a slightly larger tournament, like on a weekend or whatever, they got to bring the tables in, get them set up. Logistically speaking, get everything in order and get ready to fire up. And then, of course, when it's done, they're tearing down until two or three o'clock in the morning. That labor is going to be hard to get replaced. Yeah. But still running the tournament, that labor is gone. All of it. Yeah. No more recalling people. It's going to do it for you. That's great.
[00:26:12] That's awesome. And I honestly think that these league operators that make money, it's going to be inspirational for more people to want to come in and do it. Yeah. And it's going to make the league system grow. You can end up franchising out to a couple of different leagues, like beginner nights and beginner leagues. Like you can go to different cities. That's a huge point, by the way, the beginner nights. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big part of the United Foosball League growth engine.
[00:26:42] So if they're a growth location, that's essentially saying that you're going to have to have at least one beginner night of the league and or the United Foosball League. You actually have the league event. Oh, gotcha. Okay. If you do either of those, we will advertise for you, help your branding. There's an onboarding cost because it's going to cost us. We're also building you a website. Yep. That's going to be under the World Football Tour brand. Okay. That way our marketing team can monitor the impact of our advertising. I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:12] So we have to have it all internal if we're going to be the ones that do it. How many local clubs could even bother or even get approached something like that? There's just no way we could do it. You know, we don't. Why? Why would they? Yeah. You would. I mean, to learn everything we learned, you'd have to put in the same amount of time we put in. Yeah. Why not just partner with us and make it happen? Let you do the work. Yeah. We'll do the work. But don't get me wrong. There's going to be a value incentive for us as well. Oh, sure. You know, the National League system, we're going to have a National League Championships where, you know, the winner, the promoter will get two tables.
[00:27:42] I didn't mention that over there. Oh, okay. So the promoter will win two tables if their team wins the National League Championships. That's cool. All the players will make money. Yeah. And even the location, the bar will win five grand. Only if they sponsor the team for $2,000. Okay. If they sponsor the team for less than $2,000, say $1,000, then they'll get $2,500. Okay. And then, but that prize pool will go down to the next person. So whatever the highest team that their bar actually sponsored, they'll get that.
[00:28:11] So what we're doing now is we're having every single club, we'll be able to generate, you know, for the players, for the clubs. Yep. I mean, I don't know if there's 20 leagues, that's, you know, times two grand. That's $40,000. We're generating that goes in the club's pockets. Okay. And it only costs us five grand, right? Yeah. So, and this is kind of the whole part is we want that club to be behind you and you want to be behind them. Yeah. This is a partnership.
[00:28:38] So, you know, like on a league night, the way we're looking at the league night is it'll be $12 per night for somebody to play. That'll give you two and a half hours of like insanely fun team play. Yep. You'll be on a team. You'll play against other teams, different teams each week, different formats. Mm-hmm. And for $12, you'll be able to do that. No money. Absolutely no money. This is a social setting. I got you. This is not a competitive setting. We do not want people breathing down each other's throat. Yeah. We have $2 of that $12 go to like a pie at the end where the people basically win their entry into the next season.
[00:29:09] Oh, I got you. Okay. Kind of backtrack a little bit. A season is a six-week season. That's part of the league. Yes. It's a six-week season. And that way it keeps people coming for season one, season two. I got you. And the teams are competing to win season one, season two. Yeah. So it gives them a reason to win. If they win, they get their team on the plaque, on the trophy that every place is going to have. Yeah. And they want to get the plaques. Again, it's a team event. I love the idea of clubs battling against each other, too. I love that idea, ultimately. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:38] Exactly. The National League Championships. That's going to be super cool. That'll be really cool. And it's going to be, the format is going to mirror or be basically the same as the North American Cup, or it's going to mirror what we're doing at the local. And the whole idea is anybody can win. As long as you play above your level, then you'll win. Interesting. That's the whole goal of this. Not to be able to have one club piling all the masters and then they win no matter what. Right.
[00:30:07] It's going to be a system where, as long as you play above your skill level, your club's going to win. Nice. Because that way, anybody can win. Yeah. And that's kind of the big key behind the club. Again, it's a social thing. That is the challenge. It's kind of like with the North American Cup that we played on Thursday. By the way, that was a blast. Yeah. That was good times. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was. It was a lot of fun. 18 teams. Again, this is the team spirit. It's fun. It's different. We've only played singles and doubles in foosball.
[00:30:35] And now we have this element of teams coming in and the league is going to be team based. Yeah. And we think it's just so much better for people. And you can support your, you know, the people that you normally play against every week. You can support them in a setting where you're all in one team. And of course, you've got a chat. Well, I got to say, kudos to Tommy Yor, by the way, for putting us together for New York State. And we ended up with walking away with some metal. So we're happy. But it was just a great event.
[00:31:05] And for a great cause. Yeah. Yeah. We raised $3,000 for Foosball Club USA. Three grand. Yep. Three grand. So they'll be getting a $3,000 check. And so, yeah. No, it was a great overall experience for the players. It's going to help Foosball Clubs USA achieve their goals. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, really, the team events are fun. You know, even when we go play World Cup, it's a lot of fun. Yeah.
[00:31:32] But, you know, in America, we have our own Nations Cup, basically. The National League Championships. Right. I said this, I think, maybe even on air with you at one point. I believe it may become the biggest or the second biggest tournament of the year. Really? Nationals will become one of the biggest tournaments. It may surpass all of the games. That's an intriguing idea. Yeah. It could surpass Worlds. Really? Maybe. But we're going to get so much drift from the people that play this to Worlds. Okay. We're going to increase, too.
[00:31:59] So will Nationals be shifting around the country? Will it go to different locations? You know, the thing is, it's like, so you got, we're going to be getting a lot more data. We'll be able to make this decision better long term. But as of right now, this venue is absolutely sick. Oh, yeah. I mean, people love this venue. It's really nice. And it's huge. We didn't even use, you know, we use basically half of it because there's rooms all the way around this room, too. Right. Okay. That we could all the way up to. Could have opened it up? To where you go up the escalators. There's rooms all the way over there.
[00:32:29] Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. So literally, I mean, we could host the Worlds here if we really wanted to. All right. I'm not going to. Yeah. Most likely. But we could. Yeah. And to be honest, like, this is my second favorite room we've created out of all the rooms. Oh, it's stunning when you walk in. It really is. It's our second favorite room. The way it's laid out. It's beautiful. It's got the whole upstairs, downstairs vibe. The hotel is nice for, I mean, the rooms are nice. You got. Yes. It's cheap. Very nice. It's a casino. You know, so it's an adult playground. God, I probably had one of the best times of the year last night. Did you really? Oh, my God.
[00:32:59] I had too much fun. I think I saw that on the periphery. I was kind of over by the bar. Yeah. Those guys are having some fun over there. We're having too much fun. I was dancing, which I don't do very often. I was singing in here at one point, and I had Justin going, hey, man, your voice actually sounds pretty good. Karaoke? I was just singing whatever song was on there or whatever. But, you know, all my barriers were down. My guards were down. I was just letting loose, man. But isn't that what it's about, though? I mean. Oh, God. It's so much fun. Yes, there's competition.
[00:33:27] Yes, it's important that you win, whatever the case. But you come here and you see people. I've met like five or six people this weekend alone that I haven't had a chance to hang out with. And I feel like we're close friends all of a sudden. Right, right. Yeah. That's the best thing about a tournament like this. Just not only meeting up with old chums, but also, you know, gaining new relationships. It's fantastic. Yep. This is a great vibe. Yeah. Now we got Lucky Doubles firing up now, too. Oh, yeah.
[00:33:57] Yeah. That was brand new today, right? No, we did it last year at Nationals. Oh, you did do it. Okay. We did it at Nationals last year, but it's such a fun event. Like so many people get into it. And what's cool, the whole architectural and the whole idea of Lucky Doubles when we first created it. Last year it was sponsored. This year we paid for it internally. Okay. But because we liked it so much and we wanted to continue running it. Because last year most people, a lot of people didn't even know what was going on. Yeah. This year more people knew what was going on because we hyped it so hard last year.
[00:34:24] And so, you know, basically a random team from all 16 doubles events that were marked Lucky Doubles got selected to play in the Lucky Doubles tournament, which is a handicap doubles, single game, single elimination format. So it's one game to whatever your handicap is. Wow. Masters go to nine, winners go to four. Yeah, yeah. And that's it. And then so if you win one match, there's 16 teams.
[00:34:52] If you win one match, your team wins $250. If you win two matches, your team wins $500. That's phenomenal. If you win three matches, your team wins $1,000. And if you win the championship, you guys win two grand. So what this does is this allows any single team in the entire room to be a part of a very prestigious small group of people that are playing for $2,000, which a lot of rookies, amateurs, experts, they don't get that opportunity to do something like girls. Girls may be the only event that get that.
[00:35:21] And the way that it works is any team in any of those events can get in. So there's more lower ranked events, right? There's only one open doubles. There's one handicap doubles, which is part of it. Okay. Open mix. So a master is actually the least likely to get in the event. Isn't that interesting? So it levels the field. Yeah, yeah. And anybody can get in. The more events you play, it's actually a value incentive for us, too, because if you play a little bit more events, maybe they spend a little more money. Of course.
[00:35:46] But the whole idea behind it is that anybody can win, and everybody feels like they had a chance. Wow. And it's exciting. You saw when we were drawing it down. Oh, yeah, yeah. People were digging it. Yeah, they loved it. It was funny because there was one name that kept popping up. She kept getting chosen. Yeah, she got three times. But it was three different events. She played a lot of events. Yeah. And that's what happens. The more events you play, your odds are better. And they also, women expert and below get women's amateur women's expert and women's open for free. Oh, nice. They get free entry fees.
[00:36:16] Oh, very cool. If you're an expert woman or below, it's free. It's to help promote. Great idea. Take down the barrier of bringing women in the sport. Just because we're on the topic, is there any other sport that you can think of where men and women playing side by side in the same, basically, arena? Wherein the women are as attractive as the ones in foosball. I mean, I just don't know.
[00:36:44] I mean, I suppose maybe any women's sport, there may be attractive women. But we just seem to have more than our share. I mean, yeah. I mean, that's cool. But what I did is I did a lot of, you know, I was wanting to compare foosball to other sports as far as women participation. Yes. Women are roughly 9% of our sport. So, of all the people that play, 9% are women. And that sounds dramatically low, right?
[00:37:12] But the reality is it's like that in almost everything. Yeah. Yeah. It's like baseball is even worse, right? Versus like softball and baseball. And then you look at things like darts and you look at things like pool. And then we have like 12% to 15% or it's like 18% may be the highest. But it's very similar numbers. So, I'm like, okay, we're fine. Yeah. You know, like when you compare it to other sports, it's not like you don't have like, oh, it's just a bunch of dudes playing foosball. Well, it's just a bunch of dudes playing darts.
[00:37:39] It's just a bunch of dudes going and hanging out at some basement and playing whatever. Yeah. You know, like that is a normal thing for a dart tournament, for a pool tournament, for all these other sports that are like us. And when was the last time women who are, you know, at the top of their field, obviously women's events, but they're also playing the open events and doing really, really well. When was the last time that occurred within foosball? Yeah.
[00:38:05] It's sad to say I had to make really tough decisions to restrict women from playing one or the other. Right. So, women can only play open or women's. Got it. And it was a tough decision and it affected my biggest women friend on tour. Okay. Okay. But it was a tough decision that had to be made in my opinion. I am talking to a lot of the women as a whole to kind of get a feel for maybe there's alternative routes, but a lot of them aren't, in my opinion, good for women in foosball. Yeah.
[00:38:35] Okay. You know, like moving the day women's singles and doubles is to be like on a Wednesday and Thursday versus on the prime times. Right. Not having it be part of the finals or having it start Wednesday, Thursday, and then hold the finals for two, three days. Oh, boy. And play it, you know, so that they can. Yeah. Yeah. Because I want the exposure. Yeah. For women in foosball.
[00:38:57] It's, you know, people don't understand that it's so much more important to have more women in foosball because women equate to safety. Mm-hmm. So when people are bringing kids here, the more women there are, the more parents feel comfortable with kids being here. No question about it. Women are caretakers. They take care. They don't let anything happen to kids, whereas guys, we're just, you know, doing our own thing, whatever. Right, right, right. So it's so important to have as many women as possible in foosball.
[00:39:24] So we're trying to do everything we possibly can to boost women in foosball. And you're seeing, you know, especially the younger crop of players coming up, Seda Kruger, prime example. I think the branding is also equally as important as the other things. Yeah. We've now entered an era where, you know, we spend a ton of time and money on this branding.
[00:39:50] But we now, I think that younger generation, younger girls are actually not embarrassed to be in a room like this. They're probably like, check this room out with their friends. Yeah. I mean, it's not embarrassing no more. Their friends are going to look at this and go, that's pretty cool. Yeah. It may be foosball, but that's kind of cool, you know. I could see you being a part of that. And it's also more social, really. Mm-hmm. You know, it's much more social.
[00:40:13] You have, obviously, the competition that takes place when you're just two and a half feet away from your opponent. You can't help but get to know that person across the table. It makes so much difference, especially for young ladies coming into the sport. So I'm curious, when it comes to this next year or so, what else would you like to see happen?
[00:40:42] I mean, obviously, the thing with Joe Hesslinger, that's going to be huge, that part of it. But is there anything else that you wanted to share with us about this next year? Yeah. This next year is about growth. We are focusing. We're still going to be doing a few more optimizations of tournaments and stuff. But I feel like we're at a pretty decent spot right now. Okay. The flights have been a game changer now that they are alongside a software.
[00:41:11] Has that settled in for you? Has it? Yeah. I mean, listen, I have so few people coming up to me and saying they don't like it. A lot of people, when they do say they don't like it, they're kind of like, yeah, I'm not a big fan. But it's all right. It has its pluses and minuses. But I got, you know, 10 to 1 or more saying I love it. Yeah. People get to choose when they go and where they go. They know when they're playing, more likely when they're playing, when they're not playing. Yeah. And like the last two nights, we haven't played a main event beyond midnight. Yeah. Yeah. Which is the days are over or mostly over unless we have some issue.
[00:41:41] Yeah. And we actually, my team is, we're working hard. We're working through still some software bugs and stuff and some situational stuff. And we're still starting events about like 20 minutes late or 30 minutes late. Okay. A lot of it we could try to blame on the players and this and that. But, you know, we just have to be more strict on, you know, people getting kicked out because they're not paid or unpartnered. Right. We're still trying to be nice. We want everybody to have a great experience. Sure, sure. But it comes at a cost. Yeah.
[00:42:08] That we can't actually prove like how perfect our schedule is and stuff like that. So. It's a matter of refinement. It is. It is.
[00:42:26] It's a matter of fact. The software has automatically called every match.
[00:42:57] So we have. Yes. Me and Reed. We're both math guys. Yeah. And so Reed figured out a way to say, all right, this is how we can have the logic built into it. Okay. To allow it to prioritize. And then we refined it. So choosing the table and then the match to go with the table, et cetera. Is that what you're saying? Is that what it does? We talked a bit about that, I think. Right. We were talking about. Yeah.
[00:43:22] So, no, this says basically rookie doubles flights is more important than handicap doubles. Okay. Therefore, if the two are available, it's always going to choose rookie doubles. But it gets so much deeper than that. Okay. Because now we have a couple different ways of logic that we can put in there. We can do it that way. Or we could say, no, look, rookie doubles is like a super priority because it's flights over handicaps.
[00:43:50] So now if somebody's in rookie doubles flights and they're available to play handicap, depending on how long this match has been going, it will decide to hold these people so that it plays in rookie. That's amazing. So it has much more logic now. Yeah. But it's even better than that. Is that an AI thing? No. It's all actually just straight mental. It's all math. Mathematics. Yeah. So we assign a point value to things and then we have a couple like logic things like if we have this selected than that, if this is selected than that.
[00:44:20] Yeah. And then the way it works is if there's a hole in the bracket. So if it gets one round behind all the other matches, we add points to it. Oh. So it becomes more of a priority now. If it gets two rounds behind, it adds a lot of points. It's a hole now. So it has to pay attention to that. So now that took priority over something else that was already priority. There you go. It's all done with math. Dude. Unless we have these other selections where it's super priority. So math isn't applicable for that. Oh, sure. Sure.
[00:44:45] And so before a tournament, I designed these tournaments, the schedules in Excel, and I'm able to see realistic start and end times. You can't always know all the conflicts. Of course. You can't know who the high amateur rookie is going to be. Hey, it's foosball. But that's all part of the X factor. But we can almost know exactly how the tournament's going to go. We're still refining some things, of course. But when we couple that with the logic and the math, we can now design a tournament to
[00:45:13] do exactly what we want. So before the tournament, we know now we're going to get to a point where we'll know when we're pausing every event. And when we're starting and stopping it, and the software will automatically pause at that time. It'll automatically start at that time. Oh, that's cool. Like I said, we're just at the tip of the sword of how we make this better. Develop it. Just like we're saying for the local promoters, you will push a button. Even if you have three events, you're going to push a button, and it's going to go.
[00:45:43] You will not do anything else. The only thing you have to do is forfeit people, which on locals, most people aren't going to forfeit anybody. Right, right, right, right. But that's the only thing you'll have to manually do. Once you hit go... I'm going to tell you something, man. It's over with. That is music to my ears as a promoter. Oh, my God. That's the whole part. It allows you to have fun, too. Yeah, yeah. You know? And that's the thing, too. I think a lot of promoters can back me up on this. When you go to a regional, and we'll do a regional probably four or five times a year in our venue, we'll have 45 players show up. You know? Not bad.
[00:46:14] Of the DYP, because I've got to focus on the software, make sure everything is running okay, and that we're picking the right tables. Why do you think I'm building all this in there? Oh, man. Speak of my language. Because I want to play, too. Yeah. There you go. So the thing is, is like, I mean, we're building this to where we're simplifying everything down to make it the most effective, the most efficient, and the most cost effective. Okay.
[00:46:44] And everything that we're doing is going to trinkle down to every single person. You know, like, we really, we're still short on staff, right? Yeah. So the next step, which we didn't implement here, but we'll have by Worlds, is we'll have automatic self-registration with tap pay credit cards. Oh, dude. So people will be able to come up and tap pay and pay, because a lot of people still want you to enter it in. Oh, sure. But now it's like, hey, look, you can just literally do it there. Now we can close registration down at a reasonable time. And if anybody after that, it's like, you can either do it on your own phone.
[00:47:14] Oh, yeah. Or you can do tap over here, right? I noticed that about the software. This time I was, I mean, it was a week and a half ago I registered. Yeah. It was available. I just went in, and boom, I was done. Absolutely. And so we're going to be building tournaments out. There's still a few more things we have to do in the software to be able to build all the tournaments out. But long term, Worlds will be built out eight months in advance, and you can register. Wow. That's cool. But we're trying to make the software so efficient.
[00:47:40] The next evolution after the credit card terminals, where you can literally just tap it, you sign up with yourself on the computer and you tap it, the next evolution is a true kiosk. Yeah. It'll be a standing kiosk that will take money. It'll take cash. It won't give it back. Huh. But it'll actually take cash and credit card. It'll be standing, and you'll be able to sign up. And that'll take away the registration people. There'll still be people that have to teach people how to use it. Of course. Yeah. But now we can utilize those people for other big things that we need in the tournament. So much goes into that now. Making things run smooth.
[00:48:08] So now we have the same amount of labor costs, but everything's 10 times more efficient. There you go. Right. So that's the next step, because we can get kiosks for about $2,500 to $3,000. Really? They can just literally go to kiosk and boom. Boom. Done. And now registration never closes. Yes. That's true. They can come in at 1 o'clock. I'm like, I got to sign up for my event at 9 a.m. tomorrow. All right there. Yeah. Okay. Done. Cash in.
[00:48:37] And again, cash won't come back out. So the change will come with credit in your account. That's another really big thing we're trying to figure out is there's a lot of legal issues with it, but having a account on your profile where you can actually have stored a balance. Right. But you become a financial institution if you're able to have people have a store balance and then they can withdraw from it. Okay. So we're looking at making this like a Starbucks approach where you put money in, and it becomes like a gift card. Oh, yeah.
[00:49:07] You can't pull it back out. That's a really elegant way of doing it. And that way when people win their prize money, they'll have the option to cash it out or just throw it on my card. Yeah. And so then it's like 100 bucks or 50 bucks. Yeah. Just throw it on my card. And guess what? They'll be able to use it at the next event at their local. That's great. They'll be able to use it at a state. They'll be able to use it on the national. That's beautiful too. Yeah. So it becomes like a ledger system. But at the same time, again, it's a one-way street. Money goes in. No money can come out from it. Legally, we can't. It has to be a gift card. And that's what that would be.
[00:49:35] That's another brilliant idea. Listen, there's so many of them. And then we prioritize and deprioritize things based on what we see. Right? Yeah. Like I said, people don't understand. When you hear software, you think, okay, yeah, just get the tournament done. No, no, no. We're talking about your entire experience changes with this software. Yes. And it already just did with one feature ad. That's it. And that was just brilliant. Just brilliant. I mean, this tournament ran so smooth. Oh, dude.
[00:50:04] I mean, quick question for you, just to shift gears slightly. This last year, you implemented opportunities for the top masters to be sponsored. Yes. They have sponsorships. They have jerseys with logos and stuff on them. People buy advertising on their jerseys, which, hey, that's what all professional sports do. How's that working out for you? We generated with our also our free entry fees.
[00:50:33] We generated a $70,000 impact for the top. 70,000? The top 10 men and women. Really? Yeah. They received $70,000 worth of whatever you want to call it, whether it's less money spending or actually cash in their pocket. That's great. Yeah. So if you divide it up, it's like basically we sponsored every single top player full ride all the way to two tournaments a year. Oh, wow.
[00:50:57] Now, this is the question that comes up a lot because you think back again, you know, again, the distant past where there were people on tour that would make a living doing this. Do you see that happening again? Yeah. So it may not be in the form of actual entry. Oh, there's already people doing it. Yeah. One. Yeah. Yeah. You can say that Brandon is absolutely making it. Tony is making it.
[00:51:24] Those are probably your two right now, but they're also the two that are full time. Right. Okay. But you actually got many people behind the scenes. You wouldn't think are making good money on it. Sure. They already are. They're doing it through coaching. They're doing it through sponsorships. They're doing it through, you know, promotion. So I'd say there's probably about, you know, I don't know, five or six people, which doesn't sound like a lot, that are actually making a true living and it's all to death. Okay. Or mostly all of what they're doing. Okay.
[00:51:50] And, uh, but where it starts getting interesting is when we start getting exposure on TV, exposure on social media. Yes. And once we get our sponsors for the tour and we start getting big names in there and we start actually receiving, you know, multi six figure deals with sponsorships.
[00:52:09] Oh, uh, then at that point, the players will start not only seeing that in a payout perspective, but on a, um, ambassador inspect, um, uh, portion where we'll start paying them. Yeah. Uh, to be ambassadors. We already have four. We have four ambassadors of the world. Foo's ball tour that help, uh, you know, get the name out. Who are the four? Who are the four currently? Uh, Brandon Munoz. Yep. Isabel, uh, Sullivan room and Jacob. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:52:38] And so we have a big plan for them. We haven't been able to implement, but they're going to be an image of a lot of things that we do for like the, the mid, the youth to mid, uh, crowd. Yeah. You know, it comes to like bringing in people in and stuff. And is that sort of like what, uh, Sullivan was doing for tornado with the, she was doing some, um, photography and some other things for, uh, for them. What was it? Um, in Vegas, I think that wasn't for tornado. Uh, that was for a, uh, production company, like a software company that, uh, um, like streaming and stuff.
[00:53:08] And they have like special software that, that helps streamers and stuff like that. Huh? Uh, so yeah, no tornado tables there. Um, and I, I don't, I don't believe besides that, that was really it. And then they asked to use our logos, you know, she's current WFT world champion. Yes. Um, so, you know, we had agreed as long as we got final approval as we normally do, you know, we have to protect the brand big time. Of course. Uh, I think in the very beginning, even you took the brand and made it all pixelated one time you posted one time and I'm like, Oh no. Yeah. It's okay. It's one of the very first time.
[00:53:38] Maybe you've mentioned something about it. I'm like, this is why we have to protect the brand. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to take it. Destroy it. I was just kidding. It's all good. I won't do that again. Uh, but yeah, so, so, you know, like you've, a lot of people have seen the videos and they seen, um, you know, the different stuff going on. Um, and that's a vet of ping. I mean, we're, we're probably getting ready to do your production here. We've got, uh, we still have the open doubles to, uh, to, to watch tonight. Let me see this. Cause we had, uh, we had it set for nine and I think we might actually, uh, technically be able to hit that.
[00:54:06] Um, and this is the best part about play. Yeah. I have my phone, right? Uh huh. I tap one time cause it's already a web app. Sorry. It's zoomed in. And then I literally hit, well, for this one, I'm going to hit like, if I want to know the time of things, I hit schedule. So within two taps on your phone, you already have the schedule. You're already in it results. It's all, it's all here. Your matches, your profile, which by the way, I don't know if you noticed on the, Oh, I got to sign in. I didn't know if you, I don't know if you noticed, but we started building some stat logic in there. Did you? Yeah.
[00:54:36] We haven't really made it cause it's not like super perfect by any means, but yeah, if you already go to your profile, it'll show you. A little bit of stats on your game. Look at that. Win loss and, and your, your highest ones. You have a trophy case now. I had no idea that was there. Yeah. That's because we haven't really pushed it too hard. Okay. It's still kind of beta. There's still some glitches and stuff. Dude. We're working towards that. All right. That's, that's really cool. But, um, uh, what was I on? Oh yeah. I was wanting to see, sorry.
[00:55:03] I was wanting to see if we are completely caught up. So I'll go to results, which is technically that open doubles is pause. That means we're at the finals and open women's is already at the final. So we hit our time on the finals today. Nice. So essentially, um, you know, I'll be able to go down there and we'll be able to fire the same up basically probably just after nine because I'm, so I'm here with you. Yeah. Do it up though, man. That's the kind of good stuff. And that, and that's, um, that's what we want to see is that we timed it. So the schedule we created worked, it works for you, but it also works for us.
[00:55:32] What works for media. It works for everything. Yeah. We have to know when a finals. Exactly. You think about, you know, any, any time that there's a, especially a live event, you know, think about world cup and the, and the soccer that's been going on in this, this country, uh, this, what is it last three months? Um, it's been, it's been cool to watch, but if they don't know when things are going to happen, how could they possibly do a broadcast? Right. They got to be ready. They got to, it's got to, it's got to be ready. It's got to, it's got to go off when it's supposed to go off.
[00:56:00] And otherwise, you know, you got issues, but that's, that's exciting, man. That's very cool. Well, I got to say, man, I, it's a, first of all, thanks for inviting me. I appreciate, you know, your hospitality is always so gracious. And, uh, I am, I'm so psyched for, for worlds. I am. I'm so massive. Anybody listens to this? Like if you're ever going to go to the tournament a year, that has to be the one it is. We've got to get it to a thousand players. Cause it's going to set a precedence for where foosball is going. Yep.
[00:56:29] It's going to continuously keep raising the payouts. Uh, and what that's going to show our sponsors is that what we're doing is, is right for the game. And, and I mean, to simply take it all out of the mushy gushy stuff, it's a freaking awesome venue. Good God. It is a four star Hyatt hotel for one 39 a night. You'll never get it. It'll be two 50 to 300 a night. Oh, he's downtown New Orleans. It's one mile away from bourbon streets, one mile away from Caesar's casino. It's in a really nice area of downtown.
[00:56:58] And there's five restaurants inside that place. There's a killer steakhouse. You know, there's all different, there's a seat sushi there. Um, you know, so I mean, it, it, you don't have to leave the place. Once you go there, the rooms are awesome. The layout's awesome. The, the, the freaking, the world's room is going to be the most beautiful thing we've ever created in the history of the world. Foosball tour. Absolutely. It was amazing, but we only implemented about 60% of what we wanted now that we have it down.
[00:57:25] All of that's a hundred percent and maybe a few even new items that we had thought about will be there. So that's exciting, especially with us now, uh, starting to, uh, prepare for production, uh, in 2027. Yep. It's going to make us want to really push into a couple things that were a bit more expensive. Uh, but I think we're for production value is going to elevate it to even a higher standard. So do you think we could, uh, get you and Joe on sometime? Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. How about this?
[00:57:55] How about get us on as soon as we sign a contract and it's final final done. I mean, there is a slight chance it doesn't happen, but I would say he already just spent two weeks of cutting. It's happening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's happening. Let's do it. Let's, let's make plans. Let's do that just before it comes errors. We could talk a little bit about all this, maybe just before worlds or something. Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm, uh, as, as always the, the door is always open whenever you want to come on, just, just say the word and we'll do it up. Uh, but yeah, this is, uh, this is exciting.
[00:58:23] I'm, I'm, uh, I'm, I think I've, I've felt optimistic about foosball before, but this is, this is new level, new level of foosball excitement. It's, uh, it's coming. It's great. And, uh, and again, I don't know, I don't know why people wouldn't do it, but I, I gotta say, you know, publicly, thank you. Yeah. No, man. I have been overwhelmed with people, um, giving me good feedback and, and it's good. It is inspirational. Um, you know, even if one person gives you bad feedback and 20 give you good, you still
[00:58:53] think about that one bad. Cause we're all perfection. No, I know. We didn't want it, but yeah, no, it's, it's, it's been great. I don't need it, but I do appreciate it. Um, sure. And, uh, you know, I'm, I'm just, I'm having fun, man. I don't feel like I'm doing this, um, for some mushy gushy. I'm literally doing this out of like, this is cool. I like it. You can challenge. You can do it. It's a challenge. And I have to defeat an opponent that is before I started doing this impossible. That's what everybody said.
[00:59:21] It's foosball is impossible to grow. Yeah. And I loved that. And that's what still to this day drives me because it's like, oh yeah, I don't like that. Hold my beer. Yeah. I don't like that word. Impossible. I mean, we all know what we got in the foosball community. Yeah. Yeah. It's just sharing that to the world and we're, we're going to start doing that. So a lot of the discussions we've had on the air this weekend. And, and, uh, again, thanks to all the people that jumped on to, uh, to, to hang out. Uh, a lot of that was about how do we get this to the general public?
[00:59:50] How do we make this, uh, consumable for the, for the average person? We have all that. We have all that. I mean, we're, we're, we're going to be looking into, um, brand deals next year. Kona lining on social media with big, bigger companies have bigger following. Yeah. Uh, we actually have a hat company that has a half million followers. A hat company. That we're working with this year. Yeah. And, uh, holy moly, what's going on there? Weird. Oh, wow.
[01:00:17] Oh, that must've been a, a semi-final. I don't know, but it was, uh. Pretty epic. A lot of people. A lot of people gather around for that one. I love those types of events, those matches, man. It's, uh, you know, we're, uh, you know, as, as we get closer and closer to Worlds, obviously, I think, uh, the, the, the, the excitement, the generation, think about this, but multiply it like five times at a place like Worlds. Yeah. You know, people gather around like that. Yeah.
[01:00:46] Oh, it's going to be epic. Yeah. Epic. No, Worlds is going to be sick. Like I said, if you're listening to this, that's the tournament you got to go to because it is the most fun. It is the biggest thing. We're filming it for ESPN. So you can even get on ESPN. Oh, uh, and, and, and beyond that, I mean, like that is the one to go to. Yeah. Yeah. And the payouts. I mean, you know, we were paying out 175,000 to everybody. 175. We raised it 25,000 or 20,000 from last year and all of it went in pro down through rookie. Yeah.
[01:01:14] It all went down to the lower ranks. It's not going up top. Deeper pay, deeper pay for sure. It is just deeper payouts in every event. Yeah. We're paying the 32nd place and open. Wow. We're playing to, we're paying the 16th place in every other event. You know, every single main event. That's fantastic. Tables. There's tables and singles and doubles, uh, and, and every event and pro and women doubles, women's singles, pro doubles, pro singles all the way down plus cash. There you go. Rookie is tables, uh, for doubles and for singles. Amateurs tables plus cash.
[01:01:44] Uh, all the way up to pros tables plus plus cash, you know? Yeah. Um, so, you know, yeah, we, we, we put in 20 grand more and we just, we, we sprinkled it down in a rookie through pro man. Cause we felt like, you know, we're still at 20,000, still a good number. Yeah. I think the next number for open, if it ever goes up will be 30. I don't think really a jump to 25 is going to change anything. Interesting. You know, mentally or like 2025, it's about the same. Okay.
[01:02:10] I think 30 would be a really good job, but that requires like, um, about $20,000 to make open doubles go to 30. Cause I keep going down the, you know, second, third, fourth. Wow. That's, that's, that's terrific. One other question that just occurred to me, um, in November, uh, there is a, there's an event in Austria. Is that still happening? Yeah. I got, uh, I got that contract in my inbox right now too. I have a lot of contracts. I have to sign the contract with the place.
[01:02:39] Uh, it has been absolutely a really tough time getting that, which is the only reason why we don't have it. There's very little availability and the things that are available. They want like a hundred grand for the venue. Ooh. Uh, and you know, so for a, for a single tournament for seven days. Yeah. They want like a hundred grand. And so, uh, it's, it's been, we found something that is still expensive, but, uh, within budget, I guess you could call it within budget.
[01:03:05] Um, but we, we want that to, to, we want to take our brand and sort of Florida wants to take our experience that we give to the players to, to Europe. Cause a lot of the players come over here are just the best ones. I mean, Hey, and a lot. And he thinks that the players in Europe are going to like this type play because the way they are over there is there's like, you only play one or two or three of them. Yeah. A lot of people argue the best way I disagree. And I think fluoro and the people, you know, Rudy and all those people, uh, I think they
[01:03:35] actually love the fact that they can play so many events. Yep. The thing is there's so many events and everybody's there's so much events and there's so many conflicts. Well, guess what guys we're beating it with technology now. Yeah. We can, you know what? We can conquer that. I added events at worlds. You did. I added events at worlds. Really? So what, what did you add? Added a pro am. Oh, you did. I did. Oh, on a main day. I think it was on like Friday or Saturday. I got to start making phone calls and I added a monster. Nice. Yeah. We never had a monster at a major. Wow.
[01:04:06] See, that's that to me, that's my favorite format is monster. Everybody's doing a look when I said, yeah, what? Like, let's bring it. Let's bring it to that's brilliant. Yeah. We have it built in play has every single format. Every single format. Every single format that exists. We have it in our software, man. So when you run a local, it has everything. That's what we need. Yeah. So there's maybe a couple that he still has to get like perfected, but yeah, it's all there. Ready to go. We've been using kicker tool now for, for years. And you have to mainly input every single day, every single week.
[01:04:36] There's no logic. There's no, I mean, you have to mainly call matches. Yep. There's no way for somebody to enter a result. There's no way to have recalls. You know how long something's been going for. I mean, don't get me wrong. It works, right? Oh, sure. Yeah. It's free. It's okay. You know, but I think, again, people get involved in the experience, you know, if they have their own little hub on their phone. Now they can see their stats and now they can, they can start getting consumed with all this other cool stuff. We're going to turn our, our software into a video game.
[01:05:05] Now that's, now that's a concept. It's going to be a while because it takes a long time to gamify software. Sure. But that will be a phase that we will go through. That's what this generation really digs. Yes. It will become more like a game. Yeah. There'll be things that are moving as you're looking at it. And like, you'll get icons for achievements and like all these things. Yeah. Yeah. That's the next step. We got to get it to like good foundation. Yeah. Then we're going to gamify it. Yeah. Like I said, guys, I could talk all day with a million things. It's overwhelming. It is overwhelming. That's good.
[01:05:34] You know, what's really cool is, or this actually isn't cool, but at some point we're going to slow down. People are like, Ryan, why aren't you innovating anything? It's like, well, we have to put our focus towards this now, guys. Let's get to a certain level. Then we'll worry about more innovation later. Thank you very much. I mean, we could truly pause right now and have an amazing tour. Just this. For all this time. Yeah. Just this kind of stuff, this kind of layout. This is great. I mean, this is next level compared to what it was even two, three years ago. This is next level. Yeah.
[01:06:03] But Worlds, I mean, here's the thing. Because of the experience last year, if it's even three quarters of that, it's going to be extraordinary. It's great. It's great. Right. And oh, the flights. We have flight format at Worlds this year, but we adjusted it to where flights will start and end the same day. Oh. So flight A, flight B, and the eliminations all happen on the same day. One day. Yeah. So instead of six events starting on a day, we have three events starting on a day. I got you. And the math works out. Yeah.
[01:06:32] We have it set up to where they're not going to conflict each other. And then we have other events, like specialty events sprinkled in throughout the weekend. That's just going to be Wednesday through Monday? Is that the? Wednesday through Sunday. Wednesday through Sunday. Still five days. Okay. But Thursday has main events now. Oh. Whereas last year it didn't. There you go. So what we did is we took those specialty events that started on Thursday and we started sprinkling them throughout the weekend. Okay. Because in the elimination phase, there's less and less matches because there's only a few people left. Yep. So now we can start sprinkling some events in there. That's cool.
[01:07:02] That's why I was able to add events. That makes sense. People are going to know, well, that's crazy. No, it's not. Because I actually see how many people. My Excel sheet shows me how many tables we need for every 15 minutes. Yep. It says at this time, I'm going to need this many tables. And it scales down so much at the end of the day. There's only going to be like 20 matches playing, you know, 20 tables. So I'm like, I got 80 tables. Why not play more foosball? Of course. That's what the players want. Of course. Yeah. More opportunities just to get back on the table, man. So I'm doing the exact opposite of what everybody else thinks.
[01:07:31] Which we need to cut out events. I'm adding events. Wow. We can now do that because we have software that kills it. And guess what? If you don't want to play them all, you don't have to. Yeah, exactly. You don't have to. This is for people that want to. Well, you know. I think most people who come to an event like this would rather be on the table than not. They want to play. They want to play the whole time. That's it. They want to play the whole time. Because guess what? How many more times in the year are you going to have to be able to play this much news for? Oh, yeah. Come here and get your money's worth. You know what I mean? And that's the other thing. The value added. Right? Value added for the players.
[01:08:01] And that's a kudos, man. Because you've always been focusing on what's good for the players. Well, we are players. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know. Exactly right. You know, my mom, the reason why she had so much success is because she was a player. Yeah. You know. You have to be. You know. And that's why I want to continue playing. You know, actually, one of the things I didn't like about the flight format, even when I first started, was it didn't start and finish the same day. And I actually went to Wisconsin and I experienced it myself. I played open singles. Qualified. The very next day, my first match was against Sam Dijon. Oh.
[01:08:30] And, you know, I stayed up too late, too. I wasn't warmed up. Like, trust me, if I would have pushed, I would have been in a better position. But I hated that. That was elimination was my first match. Oh, my goodness. I was like, I got to figure out how to get this to a one day event. But it still be like accommodating to everyone. Yeah. So I did at Worlds and we can only do that on five day events. But we did for Worlds in Vegas. We could have it be this structure. And if Worlds goes well, I mean, the world is ours because. Yeah.
[01:09:00] We literally only have to scale tables at that point with more people. We just have more tables. Oh, man. So Worlds will have 100 again, I believe. We were. 100 was plenty last year. Oh, it was. Yeah. It was plenty. Yeah. I mean, but they were stacked the whole time, you know, for the most part. And because people were playing pickup games. Oh, of course. But yeah, we're going to get back to 100 tables. And we're looking anywhere from 8 to 1,000 players, possibly. We had 724 last year. Yeah.
[01:09:30] 724 players. And that's just players. Those people that came and just hung out. Right. You know, and then you got family members that don't play. I mean, there was 1,000 people there. That's amazing. Coming in and out of that place. Right. But yeah, I mean, you know, I would be happy. I'm happy no matter what. Yeah. Okay. Right. I'm happy if the tournament runs good. I'm happy if there's 500 people in and they have a freaking awesome time. And we get what we get from media. I don't care. I'll be happy. But attendance wise, if we hit 800, I'll be sick.
[01:10:00] If we hit 1,000, that would be sick for the foosball world. Yes, it would. Yeah. Yes, it would. That means we're going to 200,000. And we'll have a $200,000 tournament the next year. But we'll need it. Has that ever happened? Is it? Yeah. There was a 250 back in the day. There was. There was 250 back in the day. But they ran that two years and they failed. Yeah. You were talking about the golden era. I'm like, I'm sorry, but I'm looking at the history of foosball. And I say, yeah, that was real golden except for it wasn't manageable and they failed. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't.
[01:10:29] It wasn't sustainable. No. So it wasn't a good plan. That's the idea. It's certainly bigger is better and more people, more players. But is that sustainable? Yeah. And you're designing it to be sustainable. Yeah, it has to be. It has to be. I mean, we can take a. You know, we can take a $50,000 loss and it not kill us. Yeah. Right. We could take a huge loss and it won't kill us. But that means very next year we'll have to be much, much, much more cautious. Understood.
[01:10:59] You know what I mean? Understood. Well, buddy, I got to get going. We got a final to get prepared for. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you, man. It's as always. As always. A great pleasure just to be here and see this happen. I feel like this is foosball history. Yeah, it is. It is. It is. And Play Software is going to soon incorporate the entire history of foosball in it. So that'll be our history book. It'll have every single match that was ever on Everguide in your profiles. And it'll have even matches before Everguide. Really? Yeah.
[01:11:29] Like I said, we're just touching the tip of it. We said history. I'm like, we've been talking about the history of foosball. Play will be the one central hub for all of foosball history in America. That's exciting, man. Yeah. Good. Joe Hessling. If fingers crossed, things happen there. And we'll do it up. Awesome, buddy. Thank you again. Brian Moore, once again, making it happen here. Make it out to worlds, guys. Yeah, yeah. I know you have to come to.
[01:11:57] World Foosball Tour 2026 National Championship and North American Cup. And I'm sorry to see the North American Cup go, by the way. By the way, it may not go. All right. Really quick. All right. It won't be at nationals, though. Okay. That's all I can say. I don't know where it could be, but I think it's a pretty cool event that we can continue doing. I think New York State could take it next time. I'm just saying. Just saying. But you've been listening to Foos Talk Live, live from the 2026 World Foosball Tour National Championship and North American Cup.
[01:12:27] Thanks for tuning in. Stick around. We do have lots happening still with the Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat coming your way next. Time now for the Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat, brought to you in part by foosgadgets.com, using technology to create a better foosball experience. And by Boise Foosworks, high-fidelity refurbished foosballs. Professional foosball is a game of precision, a matter of accuracy, consistency.
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[01:13:53] Foosball tournaments are everywhere. Foos Talk Live proudly presents a weekly update of events near you. With the Foos Talk Live tournament beat, here's what's up. Here comes the 2026 Mississippi State Foosball Championships, July 23rd through the 26th at Holiday Inn Pearl, Mississippi. The 2026 Ohio State Championships, July 30th through August 2nd.
[01:14:21] The competition comes to a new hotel, the Ohio Airport Marriott, Columbus, Ohio. East Coast Foosball presents the Duval Foosball Tournament, August 7th through the 9th at the Dart Bar, Jacksonville, Florida. Canada Foosball presents the 2026 Vancouver Island Foosball Championships, August 14th through the 16th, Courtenay Legion, Courtenay, British Columbia.
[01:14:46] The World Foosball Tour presents the 2026 World Foosball Championships, September 2nd through the 6th, at the Hyatt Regency, New Orleans, Louisiana. It's the 2026 Great Lakes Classic, now scheduled for October 15th through the 18th. We'll keep you posted on the details. The North Carolina State Championships, scheduled for November 26th through the 29th. More details soon to be released.
[01:15:13] It's the 20th Annual 2026 Louisiana State Championships, December 3rd through the 6th. Stay tuned for lots more details. Each week, we do our best to give you the most up-to-date listing of foosball tournaments near you. If you have an event you'd like to add, send us all the details at foosballradio at gmail.com. Tune in every week for the Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat. The Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat is brought to you in part by foosgadgets.com,
[01:15:42] using technology to create a better foosball experience. And by Boise Foos Works, high-fidelity refurbished foosballs. Foos Talk Live is a product of Foosball Radio. With gratitude, we recognize our Foosball Radio Patreons. Our Foos Talk Live sponsor, original-leonhart-usa.com. Tune in again next week for another episode of Foos Talk Live. In the meantime...
[01:16:11] We'll see you at Foosin'.