Louisville teams confront financial realities

Some of Louisville's highest level sports teams are facing serious financial realities, which we discuss on this week's Access Louisville podcast.

First, we chat about Racing Louisville FC, the city's National Women's Soccer League franchise, which is looking for an equity investor. 

According to a story from ESPN, Soccer Holdings, LLC — the owner of Racing Louisville FC — is seeking an equity partner to keep the team competitive in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).  A representative with Soccer Holdings told ESPN that its chairman, John Neace, was not interested in giving up controlling ownership or moving the team. 

Right now both Racing Louisville and Louisville City FC are locally owned, via Soccer Holdings. We discuss the implications of taking on outside investment — from positive outcomes (like higher caliber players) to negative outcomes (such as selling the team.)

In a separate sports business story, we also chat about the financial consequences of Name Image Likeness rights and salaries for college athletes. Leaders at the University of Louisville have sounded the alarm about the lack of sustainability for situation. 

On this week's show, we also talk about a sweeping new plan for a $500 million development at the former Colgate-Palmolive Co. plant in Clarksville, Indiana. The plan would turn it into a mixed-use development, known as the Clockworks, which will have a large hotel and sports venue. We chat about a developers plans for a downtown-like area in Prospect.

And we talk about the latest with the Louisville Zoo. And there's a brief mention of this new art gallery at the River Ridge Commerce Center.

Access Louisville, sponsored by Baird, is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Racing Louisville is looking for an investor. Meanwhile, some other local sports teams are just trying to figure out their business models. We'll sort it all out next on Access Louisville. Thanks for joining us. My name is David Mann, and joining us Lisa Benson. Hey Ryan. Shade Moy. Hey folks, and Steven Schmidt. Hello. Access Lobo is a weekly podcast from Lobo Business First. Each week we bring you the latest news and plenty of shop opinions on what's going on here in Louisville, Kentucky. You might have noticed we got a little off schedule last week. I went on vacation. I left an extra podcast that was we had planned to post while I was gone, but it went up early by mistake. So hopefully you enjoyed the double feature. We should be back to our regular scheduled uh one show a week, uh posting on Friday now. So um anyway, uh the this podcast is sponsored by Baird. And discover the Baird difference at rwbaird.com slash Louisville. We'll hear more from Baird later in the show. Let's get into that sports business news that I teased at the top. Uh first, Steve, I'm gonna start out here. The National Women's Soccer League team, Racing Louisville, is looking for an equity investor. What's that all about?

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Yeah, so basically, um racing, which has been uh been playing in the NWSL uh since twenty twenty twenty-one. They are trying to keep up with the uh I guess I would say big boys, but I'll say big girls in this case. Um they're uh they're probably lowest in in revenue and they're lowest in team value. And so I think they're just kind of looking for um some somebody to kind of front them uh some cash so they can compete with these other teams. Um it's kind of it's kind of I don't there's they haven't really given a lot of the although all they've said is they don't want to uh they don't want to move the team and uh soccer holding still wants controlling interest. So those are the two big things. Other than that, we're still waiting for more information.

SPEAKER_05 2:12

Yeah. Right now the two soccer teams, Racing Louisville and Lu City FC, are locally owned. But I don't know, uh is it a big deal that they take on an outside investor? I mean, uh I think the Louisville bats, they're they're not locally owned. Um, they haven't been for a few years. They're owned by uh a company out of New York that owns a whole lot of baseball teams. I can't say I love what they've done with the place because they got rid of Dollar Beer Thursday, but uh It's Dollar Beer Friday now. Okay, well at least they did that.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

Yeah, they well they didn't think they went away. Yeah, so now it's Friday. So Friday's your day. They brought it back. Coors and Miller light dollar before the game.

SPEAKER_05 2:52

It's it was always like uh it was always a domestic light beer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

So I and Diamond Holdings owns they keep buying up more and more teams and and triple A, so like all across the leagues. And in general, like I have a friend in Arkansas and the Little Rock team I think is owned by Diamond Holdings, and she was saying like prices have gone up, and like really like the experience is the same, but like food and drink prices have gone up. It's pretty like honestly, Slugger's kind of priced like a major league stadium now in a lot of ways, uh, aside from the dollar beer night, maybe. So I think that's where seeing a lot of changes, but also think that they have made investments into the stadium. Um, you know, I if soccer holdings wants to stay local control, then you know I don't think maybe some outside money is a bad thing.

SPEAKER_05 3:38

And they're saying minority investor, yeah. They're not looking to sell the team, they're looking to take on an investor.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

So to go back to the question, I would say that uh it is a big deal because um in America, when you have somebody who's not from your area, doesn't know who you are, there's a good chance that there's there's a higher likelihood that they will uh possibly move the team. Um there's many places I can I can think of many teams where you had outside outside people who came in and uh would eventually move the team. And so I think uh you know, John Nees and his team, they're committed to Louisville, but if you have outside ownership uh and you see that and in this instance, like a minor league baseball team is not a hot commodity. Uh an NWSL team is. Uh we found out uh on Tuesday that they paid one million dollars for an expansion fee back in 2019. And in uh Columbus, Ohio, a group that led by um the Haslam group, which owns the Cleveland Browns and the Columbus crew of the MLS, paid$205 million. So they got in while you know uh uh buy low, sell high. They bought low, they could really low, as low as you can. And uh so I mean, right now, you I mean, at this event I was at on Tuesday, uh Nice was still imploring people to show up, and he's done it before back when I talked to him in November. He's like, you know, people just don't show up to the racing games in particular, is is what he is is very frustrated about. And so um, yeah, I mean, I I think that there is some concern. Uh I haven't talked to John about this, so I want to kind of suspend what I my thoughts until I, you know, talk with him about it. But I think you have to look at this with a little bit of concern if you're a racing fan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

I think it could be good and bad, right? So when you have an outside investor come in, they're looking at it solely as an asset in their portfolio, right? And so you have decisions that are made for an asset that maybe aren't emotionally based. And I think the local ownership feels more compelled to make decisions based on feelings, um, knowledge of the community relationships. And that could you could say that's been bad for Racing Louisville because we need some tough decisions to be made about the team. I mean, to your point, the the stadium isn't full. You know, we need we need to figure out how to engage the community um in ways that hasn't been engaged before. I mean, it's a great experience. I love to go to Racing Louisville games. I'm a seasoned ticket holder. Um, and it pains me when I see there's 5,000 people in the stands, right?

SPEAKER_05 6:18

Yeah, some nights it gets pretty sad. So um yeah, yeah. Uh I guess it's it's a mixed bag. We're just had to wait and see how that goes, how big of a stake. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

I I think though that I don't think that John wants to be the guy who sells that team. He's he's very loyal to Louisville. Um but yeah, whenever you get Alisa made a good point. If you have a private equity and if if one of the if an equity partner and that's a private equity person, they're just looking at the bottom line, and so they might make a lot of tough decisions, decisions that might be good for the club, but they would be decisions that wouldn't be made by soccer holdings. Yeah. Um, but you know, they could be you know cold and calculated and it could have a big impact on the team.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

And on the positive side, they could bring in some fresh capital. That means better, more talented players, the better players, the higher profile you get, you start winning games, maybe more people show up. Um, you know, you can make the argument that the team, the team did make the playoffs last year, uh, but that was the first time they made the playoffs. So, you know, I think the better they do, the better the attendance is going to be. But anyway, we'll move on to college sports, also uh a matter of attendance. But uh on the college sports front, it sounds like U of L is still figuring out the new business model of NIL and paying players salaries. Uh this week, Jerry Bradley, the university president, Josh Hurd, athletic director, and Larry Benz, who is chair of U of L's Board of Trustees, spoke to the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. And uh Steve, what was their message?

SPEAKER_03 7:47

Yeah, so basically, this this stems from a uh uh white paper that uh Bradley, Heard, and Benz uh co-wrote called From the Sidelines, Not the Arena, College Athletics is running out of time. But some of the some of the highlights, um, you know, they said the NIL is a farce, it's a facade, the time for change is now. I'm just pulling things out. Uh, one time Josh Hurd said, Can we just get the train back on the tracks? Because right now I feel like we've crashed the plane into the side of a mountain. He's mixing metaphors. He was he was mixing metaphors. He's got the train or plane. So ultimately, what they want is they want more, they want better governance, they want, they want uh better guardrails when it comes to revenue sharing, and they want a hard spending cap. And then they the biggest thing is they want Congress to get involved. So um Josh uh was saying that I I truly believe that Congress does not get involved until they have to, and we're at that point. So that was one of his his closing thoughts. So um yeah, so I think the next step is uh you know, they they made a splash for this commission, they've gotten national um attention, and so now uh and the fact that it that event was in DC, I don't think is by um by some uh coincidence.

SPEAKER_05 9:03

Are other schools doing this kind of talk? I've heard U of L do it a lot.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

Not that I know of. Uh I I and that's why the that's why the panel, you know, commended their bravery because they're doing something that others may have thought about doing but actually haven't done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

I follow IU pretty close as a IU fan, and I haven't really heard that coming from them. Um it might be a difference of having a multi-billionaire donor and Mark Cuban. Yeah. Might smooth things over a little bit when you're thinking about money, but I definitely seems like U of L execs have rattled the cage the most, or at least in this area around it. Yeah. We've had coach like certain coaches have you know complained, but they complain about everything. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:46

I think it's cool they're doing that. I mean, I feel like college sports, it it's hard to make financial sense of what's going on in it. So um I'm glad someone's sounding the alarm.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

I bumped into Josh Hurd at an event a couple of weeks ago and uh talked to him just really briefly about this, and he said one word that just sticks with me, and it was unsustainable. It's just this whole situation is not sustainable for college sports. Yeah. Well, a college like University of Louisville, anyway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:13

Uh Josh Hurd and Larry Benns, I believe, both friends of the show, have been on the show before. You're right.

SPEAKER_04 10:18

Larry Benz was an OCT. He was one of the first ones on the he might have he was one of the first few CEO interviews I did was him and Scott Collins because they had got um canopy certified.

SPEAKER_05 10:29

And then we had Josh on our live show last year, late last year. Um, all right. Well, I will uh move us on away from sports for a bit. Uh let's talk about a couple big developments. Shea, you're batting uh pinch hitter on these. Uh couple couple people are out this afternoon, so uh so you're you're filling in on these stories. But uh the former Colgate Palm Olive plant, that's a project me and you have been watching for about 20 years now. Yeah, that's uh that what's happening over there? That's big news this week.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

Yeah, I was gonna say so Olivia Estrite wrote this story, so credit to her on this. Um it was it was a big one. Um it's a half billion dollar project. Uh but I will say uh echo your thoughts that David and I first started working together at the News and Tribune um, you know, 20 some years ago. And the plant was uh closed down in late 2002, early 2008. Uh the building dates back to the early 19, I think the early 1900s-ish. 1920s. Yeah, well, or even before it was a prison. Uh, Colgate opened in 1914, I think. So it was a first Indiana State prison, I believe. Then the Colgate plant opened. It employed 1,500 people at one time. You and I knew people that worked there. Uh definitely like this kind of one, like the like GE sort of a staple job. It was kind of like GE. Yeah. That's what it reminded me of. So um, but there's been a battle between the town of Clarksville and the uh the owners of the property. Not much has happened. There's been a couple of things in there, but nothing public-facing. Uh, but this week, Wayland Ventures announced plans for, as I mentioned, an up to$500 million two-decade-long project to transform this into what would be called Clockworks. And once I saw the renderings, what immediately came to mind was Bottle Works in Indianapolis. If anyone's been up there, it was an old Coca-Cola plant that they have now turned into a hotel, like a bowling alley, bars, outdoor areas. It's really cool. Um, this looks to me very similar and it's a repurpose of an old manufacturer, you know, sort of a manufacturing plant. Yeah. Um, the difference is this one, along with the hotel, which is gonna be a Marriott brand, that's gonna incorporate be the first part of the development, will incorporate the current building, including the 38-foot clock. Uh, they're gonna build another building to house a different part of the hotel. Uh, and then you know, mixed-use areas. Um a conference center is in the works, not a huge conference or convention center, but uh, it's 16,000 square feet. Clarksville's been talking about that for a while. Restaurants, um, but kind of the interesting thing is also there's a sports complex component.

SPEAKER_05 13:00

There's like soccer fields in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Yeah, so it's it's really interesting. Bottleworks does not have that, but I was reading up at a couple other this is sort of becoming um, you know, in vogue is incorporating these smaller sports complexes in these mixed-use developments. So um, you know, uh Bill Whalen in the story kind of has a quote like, We've been looking at this since 2010, but it wasn't really time yet. And I posted on social media that I think really what has moved this along was the the development's already happened in Sark that's already happened in South Clarksville. Oh, yeah, yeah. Bolton Tie, the re they're kind of making this a little mainstream. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 13:35

Like it's already awesome over there. And the fact that they're doing this is gonna make it even better.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

Yeah, and it's kind of similar to the the next story we're gonna talk about um in kind of creating a place where there is no place, right?

SPEAKER_05 13:47

Yeah, exactly. Like this was all just uh either industrial or um or just a lot of open grassy fields over there, and now this has turned into like this has turned into Clarksville's downtown.

SPEAKER_04 14:00

To the south of Colgate was the marathon tanks property. That's now become some of this development we're talking about. But really, between Colgate and the river, it's all this blank has been this blank canvas. And now finally stuff's happening in the Greenway's there, Ashland Park's there, Jeff's right across you know the way.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

And they've been talking about it for 20 years, and it looked it was like finally happening and it's looking great.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

Also interesting, you know, this is coming at the same time that Jeffersonville is hoping to redevelop Jeff Boat. It's like it's a billion-dollar project, and it's like both look amazing. You know, is there enough investment and people to like kind of move these developments that are really like a mile and a half apart, maybe along? Um, but I will say, you know, Clark County is one of the fastest growing counties in Indiana, so that is on the side of uh and you know, obviously a bedroom community for Louisville. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:53

Yeah, and you teased it a minute ago, uh, Prospect is building a new downtown or its own downtown. It doesn't have a downtown now. Um, but uh some plans came out this week uh where it wants to there's about I can't remember the acreage, I'll let you go over it, but uh there's some land there in your prospect it needs to annex and it wants to put some big mixed-use type developments there.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

Yeah, the the developer uh Wes Johnson um is working with the the city of Prospect on this. We have 30-acre development, and it kind of like would lead kind of an entryway off of US 42 into prospect. Uh definitely heavy on mixed use, you know, not resident, not residential in one part and retail in another. It's kind of all to coexist. And uh the mayor kind of said, you know, hey, there there's great places to go walk around here, but you can't walk and get an ice cream cone, I think is what he said. So they're definitely modeling this out after Norton Commons. Like no, like, you know, they said that blatantly, which kind of does incorporate, you know, there's a house next to a restaurant, next to, you know, a park. That's what they're looking for in prospect, um, you know, to kind of reshape what that community and give it uh a sense of being and a sense where people gather. Lisa and I were just actually at a breakfast this morning for Olmstead Parks, and you know, it's one of the themes is like places where people can gather and feel inclusive and included. And so um kind of what they're working toward there is sort of based off Norton Commons. Um I did I was interested though, just today we got new census population data. So I looked up before the show how much prospect had grown since 2020 versus the city of Louisville, yeah. And they're both right at 2%. So in my mind, you know, I was like, oh, prospect's probably really growing, um, not really growing that much population, but maybe this is a means to attract new residents. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:40

At first I was kind of like, why do people want to build new downtowns outside of downtown? As a big supporter of downtown Louisville, you know, I want to see growth here. But on the other hand, it's just good to see density anywhere and like this kind of development, like where you have mixed use people living there, ice cream shops, that sort of thing, bars, restaurants. That's cool anywhere, you know. I mean, it's cool in in Prospect or in downtown or in Clarksville. So uh, you know, I mean that that kind of density, I think, just it always adds a lot of character to any neighborhood.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

So it'll be interesting to see what the you know what these residences sort of rent for or sell for. Um Prospect is a very wealthy area of it's the I think the 11th wealthiest zip in our area. Um, and the average home price is about six hundred thousand dollars. So we'll see where that goes with this new development. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 17:30

All right, one more story for you to pinch hit on, and that is the Louisville Zoo. Although you're a Louisville Zoo expert because you live real close to there and uh visit a lot. So, what's going on with this new exhibit they got?

SPEAKER_04 17:41

I was gonna say I sneak in sometimes, but I I don't. I don't uh to you know, I would love to bring the red panda home or the bitterong or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Uh yeah on their watch list now. I know.

SPEAKER_05 17:51

They did just have the was a new monkey out there. Uh yeah, and a new and a giraffe.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

New baby giraffe. Uh so actually the last story uh prospect and the story Joel Stennett wrote, he's our senior reporter, he's off today. Um I love the zoo. Um, I think zoos are really cool. I think it breeds, you know, literally breeds animals, but also breeds uh interest, um, education in conservation and you know, protecting species. But uh this is something that's been talked about. It's this Kentucky Trails um plan to sort of develop part of the zoo that's undeveloped uh off Trevillion into more of a Kentucky theme, um, kind of like things we see in Kentucky in a home. Uh so it's a total of a hundred million dollar project over the next several years. The zoo got some state money, they got some money from the city. Um, but this would kind of extend a habitat and hiking trails, and they're looking to uh kind of pair it with animals that are native to Kentucky that you would see along the way. So a bobcat, maybe, or um, you know, other birds, things like that. Uh Wittenberg Constructions worked with the zoo quite a bit, is the um can the construction firm on it, and uh yeah, they're about to get about to get rolling. Um Joel found this in a uh filing for the city, and uh they're about ready to start working on it. We got some renderings on our website. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Oh, I just I just wanted to talk a minute about the baby monkey before we move on.

SPEAKER_05 19:17

What kind of monkey? Was it a Poochan monkey?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

An a polybus monkey. And but the thing that was most interesting to me was the the father of the baby's monkey is named Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

SPEAKER_06 19:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

And I want to publicly advocate for all zoo animals to get first and last names. And titles and titles, if appropriate.

SPEAKER_05 19:35

Yeah, as long as they earned it.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

That's right, as long as they earned it.

SPEAKER_05 19:38

No PhD.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

And if there are other zoo animals in Louisville with first and last names, I would like to know. So please, um, zoo people, please reach out to me with that information.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Yeah, pretty sure. My kids' first uh like inside scoop was they knew about the baby Maasai giraffe well before that was announced to the world. They they they told me because they would they would they they go to zoo camp all the time and they're like dad, there's a baby giraffe, but we can't really talk about it.

SPEAKER_06 20:02

Okay, keep this off the record, it's off the record.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

The native journalists in your home.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

Yeah, your kids are like, This is we're going off record here. The giraffe baby is not named yet, so there's an opportunity for a first-last name.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

They haven't given the name yet.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

They suppose it's gonna be now in something like the next couple of weeks. Yeah, the mom is Kianga, and the dad of the giraffe is Barty, it looks like. The jap the giraffe was like six foot tall plus when it was born.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Like the baby giraffe was six foot tall?

SPEAKER_04 20:32

190 pounds, like when it was born.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

See, he should have a first and last name and should be Mr.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

No, it's uh it's uh maybe a missus.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

Yeah, a miss, I believe. Miss who knows? Not married. Yeah, not married yet.

SPEAKER_05 20:47

Um things move fast in the giraffe world.

unknown 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:50

I was gonna mention that you once had the zoo director on for an executive interview.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

And it was the most giddy you've been just talking about the well, he he also spent time in Australia, and so I wanted to talk to him about wombats, and he humored me. Kyle, their comms director, had told him before how much I liked wombats, and so the first thing he said is like, I heard you like wombats, and then we talked about wombats for like 15 minutes of the interview. Yeah, he's great, he's a very easy-going guy, and um and has brought like in all seriousness, um, brought a lot of animals that we didn't have four years ago. The red pandas, the koalas, the bitterong. Uh, those are three I know of for sure that we didn't have at the zoo.

SPEAKER_05 21:31

So um, yeah, and uh and and those are have been very popular exhibits too.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

I also love saying bitterong any chance I give.

SPEAKER_05 21:39

Yeah, you like to work that in the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

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SPEAKER_05 22:15

All right. Well, that is our show this week, but I'm starting a new thing. I thought about this, I've been thinking about this, and then I thought it started thinking about it on vacation. I'm gonna retire our old sign off where I ask people for their social media handles. Uh, because everybody just says, I'm on LinkedIn, it's my name. Okay, so it's established.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

We're on LinkedIn. We're we're putting more faith in our audience to be able to stalk us if they want on our own time.

SPEAKER_05 22:42

Yeah, exactly. Uh so uh I've been kind of bored with that for a while, so I thought I'd try something new, and and that is gonna be the question. At the end of each show, we'll end it with, for a while, at least see how it works. Um, give us something to think about. And this can be an observation you had about a news story that you read or a story you wrote or an event you went to or Louisville or whatever. And I'm gonna start uh just to give some context to it. Uh, it was a story that Olivia wrote recently. Olivia Estrait wrote a story about an art gallery opening at River Ridge. And I remember thinking, oh, why do they put an art gallery at River Ridge? That's a weird place for an art gallery. But then, like, I sat with that thought for a second, and I was like, you know, actually, it's kind of cool that like people working at Amazon or someone who's just a a member of the working public or whatever can go check out this art gallery. They don't have to go to a downtown hotel to see it. It's not just for university students, it's just right there where the public is. And I'm like, well, that's actually really cool that they built that art gallery at River Ridge because it just makes art more accessible for someone. That's a like really nice art gallery. It is a Jim Carp has some art. Yeah. I'll link a story and it has photos, but you should also just go check out the art gallery. So uh Lisa, how about you go next?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Uh Shay mentioned that he and I spent the morning at a fundraising breakfast for Olmsted Parks Conservancy. And I learned that Olmsted Park System represents the most fully realized vision of Frederick Olmstead, who is the father of American landscape architecture. And the system originally had 18 parks, but we lost one to development at the University of Louisville for athletics facilities. I did not realize that. We lost one of our Olmstead parks. Um the system has about 2,300 acres of park synchrone space. So it just sort of made me think about um what a great asset that is for the community, how unique it is, and how we really need to protect it.

SPEAKER_05 24:37

Oh yeah. Yep. Yeah. They they're great parks.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

Yeah, I can walk to an Olmstead park and I love it. It's one of it's my favorite park.

SPEAKER_05 24:43

I got married at an Olmstead. You did?

SPEAKER_04 24:45

I got married at Cherokee Park. Yeah. Uh do you want me to go with Mike?

SPEAKER_05 24:49

Yeah, you go next. Well, give us something to think about.

SPEAKER_04 24:52

Uh so we were talking about this in the newsroom today. Uh mostly Zach and I, our digital editor. Um, Zach lives in Ottoman Park and he's already fretting and dreading the I-65 shutdown that's coming in in less than two weeks, I believe. Uh so we're kind of formulating some story ideas around that. Like we were thinking about what about a business like what chefs want that traverses the city, or a florist who you know needs to get your flowers to you today, or let alone the individual contractors that are door dashers and things like that. Or an ambulance. Or an ambulance or anyone or a commuter. Um, it's just gonna be a lot. And like, I think uh the Transportation of Art knows it's gonna be a lot. They're like, we're gonna rip the band aid off and do this as quick as we can with a total shutdown. But just be thinking about your escape routes, I guess, for coming up, because it's gonna be a lot. It's like for those of you that remember Shermageddon and Shermageddon 2. Shermageddon became a regular occurrence.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

I have a really big like feeling of dread now, just nettling into my stomach.

SPEAKER_04 25:54

I'm I'm like talking to Zach, I'm like, I'll just take this because I don't get on I don't get on an interstate to come to work. So um I'm like, I don't know, but these cars that are normally on the interstate are gonna have to go somewhere.

SPEAKER_05 26:04

So that's gonna be the how I think it's gonna help me because none of the 65 traffic will be on 64. That's probably true. But we'll see. Anyway, uh Steve, give us something to think about.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

Yeah, I'll I'll give us something that on a I'll end on a uh I guess a happier note than uh than that. Um so if everybody knows the uh switch going back to sports, uh the World Cup starts on June 11th. Um and so that's gonna be here in the US, and that'll be interesting for several reasons. Um but uh the one thing I wanted to say is that I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of different soccer news that comes out uh near near the world near the start of the World Cup. One of those being that um the USL where Lou City plays, they said last year that sometime this year they were gonna announce the initial teams, which will probably be I think 14, 12 or 14, and uh for this USL Premier League that's going to be Division I soccer. And so I would say that I I would if I'm a betting man, I I think that uh we could see an announcement to play off the um to play off the momentum of the World Cup um about the USL, and I would expect that Lou City would be one of those teams that would start play in 2028. And then the also the other thing is is that going back to like the traffic thing, I know that a lot of people in town, you know, not getting a training site for World Cup that was a was kind of I think a hit to our ego. But you think about all the security and all the traffic issues from like the team hotel to the to the uh training grounds, that would just make things even even worse for uh several several weeks. So I I remember one person said that we kind of probably dodged a bullet by not getting the uh the the training site, and and so that's something to think about that the traffic I guess could be worse, but you know, now we don't have to worry about it. Um but uh yeah, I I think that uh there's gonna be a lot of different soccer-related news within the United States, the build-off momentum of the World Cup. And I I think that the USL Premier uh announcement could be one of those.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Can I just say that Steve is definitely a Louisville now when he's saying we don't want new things because of the traffic that's going. So well done, Steve.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

I like my 15-minute commute.

SPEAKER_04 28:28

I can't go back. Yeah, there is a uh WDRB story this week, our news partner about traffic grumbling in Shepherdsville. Shepherdsville's growing too fast, and the traffic's battle.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

Yeah, traffic grumbling's everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 28:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:41

Um, all right. Well, that is it for our show. If you like what you hear, please consider subscribing to Access Global on popular services, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many others. Thank you very much, Lisa. Thank you, Jay, thank you, Steve, and Bear. And uh we will see you guys next time. Take care.