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This is the Gary V. Audio Experience.

So let's get started. You guys are so impactful. I love it. I want to talk about how you two got started.

Well, got started with your candy digital and that concept. So during the pandemic, you co-founded and collaborated on the All in Challenge,

which raised over $60 million for charity by auctioning off experiences with celebrities.

How did working together on All in lead to candy digital?

Okay, so from my perspective, Gary is always someone who's like 17 steps ahead and this could be the first time really given him a public credit for it.

The whole trading card idea that fanatics, you know, it's built a pretty big business around, came from Gary, hitting me over the head about 17,000 times saying,

you need to be in trading cards. The next big asset class is going to be gigantic. When we did the All in Challenge together, Gary was talking to me about kind of, you know, where the NFT broker could head.

So Gary is a guy who I always value that I have in my kind of orbit of seeing transfers, recognizing big opportunities.

And, you know, I knew Gary pretty well going into the All in Challenge, but the 24-7 mentality that he brought toward doing whatever it took to, you know, raise as much money for people with food and security was amazing.

And it just made me love him even that much more and we turned obviously doing something good for the world and to create a new business together.

You know, I think one of the unique things about Michael is there's very few people who have the combo of sizzle and steak. When you have charisma or energy or creativity, a lot of times the operational execution part doesn't come along with that and vice versa.

And there are unique individuals that come along that can really combine the two. And the same thing for me, I had an incredible point of view on who Michael was, but really having somebody actually keep up with me 24 hours a day felt so unique.

And I was like, okay, this guy's on a, on a different plane altogether. And, you know, we were navigating our own businesses and our own family situations in COVID.

And listen, co-founding is being incredibly kind. Michael called me and already had it baked and said, hey, do you want to help me with this? And I just remember that phone call because it was very early in the process and things were still very scary.

And I was like the humanity to try to help others while navigating the things he had to do really, really struck me and definitely changed our relationship.

I love that and I love your comment about the sizzle with the operations because Michael, you have a longstanding relationship with MLB. And so as you as you were conceiving of candy digital.

Which was announced in June 21, how do you think first, how that, how that relationship with MLB is changing the way we think of baseball? Well, first, I think, you know, relationships are everything. And, you know, business, you need to have both great strategy and great relationships to make that strategy happen.

So, you know, we work with today close to a thousand sports properties globally and, you know, baseball is an incredible partnership. And I think, you know, what we saw was an amazing, you know, I think what Gary saw and what Gary helped me see quite honestly was an amazing, you know, long term opportunity, but also one that would go through a lot of changes.

So, when we spoke to baseball, the conversation was really about how do we build this the right way for the fan long term. And I think, you know, the NFT market really started really around the crypto community and what, you know, Gary helped me understand.

And I think what we understood early was it was not only about the crypto community, but it's really about how do we get billions of sports fans to engage with NFTs and, you know, really engage with incredible content that all the sports properties possess long term.

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