- I'm excited that
entrepreneurship has become
so cool and competitive,
because Job's a kid.
How old are you?
- [Job] 34.
- He's a fuckin' child.
And athletes went through massive,
generations of athletes
prior to Job really struggled
living their whole life
wanting to do something
alpha and competitive,
achieving their max goal,
and then being considered old at 33.
- [Interviewer] Gary,
welcome to Melbourne.
- Thank you guys, how are you?
- [Interviewer] Good, good.
How's your trip been?
Has it been a bit of a
quick one, in and out?
- It's actually a long one for me,
because I just had to
stay over the weekend
and do some consulting.
So quite a long trip, a week.
Usually, when I go to Australia
to four or five cities,
I'm here for like four days.
It's literally land, shower,
speak, boom, boom, boom.
So it's actually a pretty
long trip by my standards.
Maybe the longest trip in another country
I've done in six or seven years.
So it's seven or eight
days, and I'm enjoying it.
- [Interviewer] Awesome, and you're here
at the best time of the year,
slash worst for weather,
slash best for sport.
And we're the self-proclaimed
sporting capital of the world,
if you haven't heard already.
(laughter)
Every time.
(laughter)
And Job is a former AFL player.
- Yup.
- [Interviewer] And I guess
the interest in chatting
with you apart from business and marketing
and all that sort of stuff,
which is sort of, could
be considered a game,
is the footie side, and the sports side,
and also the sports
management within sports.
Do you know much about
Australian football?
- I do, actually.
I've been to two separate playoff games.
One with Collingwood at their home,
and it was one of the best
sporting experience I've ever had.
- [Interviewer] At the MCG there?
- Mhmm.
Just the, you know, kind
of tribal, kinda hardcore.
You know, I remember it was during a time,
this was like 2001, '02, '03,
the Raiders were having
a good run in America.
And the Silver and Black, and kinda that,
and I remember thinking that, but so,
I do, I've probably watched
seven to 10 matches on TV
through the years being in
different parts of the world,
Asia or here, I don't fully
fully understand it enough,
cause I just haven't
consumed enough of it.
But a lot of footie players have started
making transitions to the NFL.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- And the Jets have a
punter, Lachlan Edwards,
who's a nice Aussie mate, and for me,
there's a kid Valentine
right now on the Jets,
who's on the practice squad, or excuse me,
trying to make the Jets football team.
I've been interacting
with him a little bit.
And so, yeah, it's something
that has been very much on my mind.
- [Job] Cause I'm a Raiders supporter,
and I know you're a big Jets fan.
- Yes.
- [Job] How did that come about?
I know you lived in Jersey,
but where did this sort of
passion come for the Jets?
- It happened right,
I mean probably within the
week of moving to New Jersey.
When I was six years old, you know,
I was still kind of learning
America and the language.
For everybody who doesn't know,
I was born in the Soviet Union,
and came to the US as a young child,
and when we moved to New
Jersey, that was suburban life,
and it was the 1980s, when kids
used to go outside and play,
so I just literally you know,
ate breakfast one morning,
and my mom threw me out the door.
So I'm just literally wandering,
this is real by the way.
Wandering the streets, looking for kids.
And found a group of kids throwing around
an American football, and walked over,
and they said you know,
who's your favorite team,
and I said I have no idea.
And Eric Godfrey, still
know him to this day,
said you're a Jets fan, and I'm like okay.
I'm a New York Jets fan.
And didn't necessarily
even know what that meant.
Started watching the game,
and it became an enormous passion of mine,
just deeply resonate with sports.
As I've gotten older, and maybe
within the last year or two,
I've realized that it has
so much to do with the fact
that there's so much merit in sport.
- [Interviewer] It's
such an equalizer, sport.
- It just, you can't hide.
- [Interviewer] Doesn't
matter where you come from,
it shows your good and your worst.
- Can't hide, and I love that.
There's a score, there's
adversity during the process.
There's an end result.
There's, you know, so much
of what I hate about society
is hiding and posturing and bullshitting,
and you know, sport does not allow that.
You could talk a big game,
but once you get in there,
the reality plays out,
regardless of the hype,
regardless of where you were picked,
regardless of your
background, to your point.
Regardless of what you did yesterday.
You know, is something I've,
probably the reason I love boxing so much.
Talk about somewhere you can't hide.
At least in a team sport you
can kind of muster it up,
like hey, it was my mate, he fucked up.
(laughter)
Boxing is super suffocating to the truth.
And so that's, you know, it started young,
and it continues to this day to be
one of the great places for
me to escape my reality,
those three hours during
a Jets football game,
it's like meditation,
it's like worshiping.
It's just a place where I
can escape my realities,
and really get sucked into
the drama of that story,
and you don't know how the
story's gonna play out.
- [Interviewer] Do you
think that's why sports
captivates people,
because it's an escapism
that is emotionally based for them?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] It takes
them somewhere on a journey?
- I do.
I think much like a movie or a good book.
I think it is escapism.
I also think for some people, not for me,
for some people, it's a
place to get validation,
where they can't accomplish it themselves.
So, I think one of the tough
things about being a fan,
is watching people be fans
of very successful teams,
and being confused that
that's their success.
- [Interviewer] Are you directing this
in the greater Boston area?
- I am.
(laughter)
And by the way, you know it's funny,
not at the greater Boston area,
because they should be Patriot fans.
I'm talking to the kid who's
16, living in Oklahoma,
wearing a Tom Brady jersey,
who claims he's a Patriots
fan, who he shouldn't be.
You know, unless he has
grandparents from Boston,
you know, watching people become
Golden State Warrior fans,
or Cleveland Cavalier
fans, or Yankee fans,
that shouldn't be, but
they need self-esteem
from somewhere outside of themselves,
I think is a tell to being a loser.
And that's how I see it.
- [Interviewer] Do you think that...
- To me for example, to be a footie fan
in a market that has a
team, and cheer for the team
that won last year's championship?
You're a fuckin' loser.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, yeah.
- [Job] Just don't follow Collingwood.
Number one rule.
- [Interviewer] Do you think,
is sports in danger of
being taken by Esports?
- No, no.
But I think Esports will be here.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, yeah.
- And which is great.
You know, no, I think there's
always room for sports.
New sports, sports fading.
But no, I don't think, first of all,
I think the skill set that it takes
to be a great Fortnite
player is quite different
than being a good footie player
or a proper football player,
or an American football player.
So a lot of kids that are gonna end up
being great champions in
Esports were never destined
to be an NBA player, or
be on the tennis tour.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
- So that's how I see it.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, someone like Job,
who's been a professional
athlete in our game,
in any game I guess you
can last two minutes
or you can last 15 years in some cases,
and Job was smart enough
to make a transition
to business and has opened
businesses in New York as well.
You deal with athletes now all the time,
but then also on the business side.
What's the comparison that you see
in those athletes to business?
- I'm excited that
entrepreneurship has become
so cool and competitive,
because Job's a kid.
How old are you?
- [Job] 34.
- He's a fuckin' child.
And athletes went through massive,
generations of athletes
prior to Job really struggled
living their whole life
wanting to do something alpha,
and competitive, achieving their max goal,
and then being considered old at 33.
And then they had to live 70 more years.
So the fact that I'm
watching a lot of these guys,
and gals, be able to transition at 35
and find a new way to compete
that will actually lead to
prosperity instead of depression,
really makes me happy.
And I think that's why, you know,
it's really cool to see the
rise of entrepreneurship
benefit so many athletes,
because I think you see
a lot of them really have
struggled in the 40s, 50s, 60s,
70s, 80s, 90s, early 2000s.
And now, you're starting to
see that become a new outlet,
and I'm happy about that.
- [Interviewer] Do you
think that there needs to be
a really strong content
footprint from these athletes
online to help develop once
they've finished sport?
- I don't think so.
I don't think it has to be.
I think it's a good idea.
But I think it's a good idea to, you know,
squeeze as much out while
everyone's looking at you.
And you know, I'm sure Job felt this.
Like I tell Jets players all the time,
like you better use me while you're a Jet,
because I'm interested
in meeting with you,
because if you get traded
or when you retire,
it's just not as interesting.
- [Job] That's the thing about an athlete,
is you're never as relevant.
- Never, never.
- [Interviewer] When you retire.
You're never gonna rate the same.
- Never.
Not even Kobe right now, who's an icon.
It just isn't.
And so I do think, but let's
talk about something else.
One may also be an introvert.
You know, there's a lot of athletes
who don't wanna put out content.
And that's okay, I think
it's the right thing to do.
But I don't think it's a requirement.
I think you can go on to have
a monumental business career.
Mark Zuckerberg doesn't
put out content every day.
You know, Jeff Bezos doesn't
put out content every day.
Sara Blakely doesn't put
out content every day.
So you could build a great business
without being a content creator.
It doesn't hurt.
- [Interviewer] But Gary V
does put out content every day.
- I do.
- [Interviewer] And you
also have VaynerSports.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] What advice
do you then give to your...
- Look, we're a new firm in
a very competitive space,
and so the 27 guys
who've signed up with us
clearly see our value off the field.
So we, but we reverse engineered them.
Most of the guys are not
producing content at scale.
All of the guys are
taking very smart meetings
and are being groomed
to be successful men,
in their relationships, as
fathers, let alone businessmen.
So I'm in the business
of reverse engineering.
You know, I think about it like coaching.
If somebody is fast, that's
something you pay attention to.
It's hard to get way faster.
You know, it's hard to get way faster.
But you might be tough, or you
might be extremely thoughtful
or have incredible instincts.
So with VaynerSports,
it's important for me
to get to know Geronimo
Allison, Allen Robinson.
It's important for me to know Jon Toth,
you know, I need to know Cam Kennedy,
I need to know who they are as a human,
and then I can reverse engineer.
- [Job] One of the
things that most people,
like all of the players who've
retired and things like that,
is that when you're playing,
you actually never really have
that opportunity for self-discovery.
You never really ask yourself
who am I, what is my life?
Because you're so single-mindedly
focused on performance.
- That's right.
- [Job] And playing your game.
So when it finishes, and
that game's no longer there,
those experiences that
people have in their 20s
when they go who am I, what am I like?
You haven't asked
yourself those questions,
and I think that's where that negativity
and the fear of finishing
a career comes about.
- Look, I think there's a lot of people
in their 20s that are not athletes
that never ask them that question either.
You know, so I don't think it's,
but yeah, I think that's right.
I think the identity is wrapped
up into a singular action.
And it's amazing, and you
may be sensing this as well,
in the US, these 18 to 25 years olds
are dramatically more thoughtful around
their off the field activities
than even a half a generation ago.
It's crazy to watch the evolution.
And that comes out of
entrepreneurship being cool.
There's nothing else to say.
Same with rappers.
Blows my mind what rappers
are talking about at 20,
compared to the ones I
hung out with 10 years ago.
Just completely left field.
Like have completely made the transition
to far more thoughtful,
empire-building, legacy.
You know, they're still
looking to hook up,
and make money and do all those things,
but there is far more
thoughtful conversation going on
these days from athletes and entertainers.
- [Interviewer] When
you come to Australia,
you know, you obviously
built your career in the US,
you're not as well known here
as maybe what you would be there.
- Yep.
- [Interviewer] When someone comes up
and you have to describe yourself to them,
how do you do it now?
With all the things you've got going on.
- I just say I'm an entrepreneur.
You know, and then if
the conversation goes,
they're like what do you mean?
I'm like well, you know, I invest,
I have a very large agency, advertising.
They're like what does that mean?
I'm like you know, like Mad Men,
but for Facebook and Twitter
and things of that nature.
They're like okay, I understand that.
And I speak, and I produce
content, I write books.
So you know, I'm not overly
worried, you know, it's weird.
When you're climbing, you are
hungry to explain everything.
When you get to a maturity in your career,
where you probably feel
a little bit better
about some of your accomplishments,
things of that nature,
I almost now find myself
downplaying it more.
Right?
You know, like I don't have a deep need.
I almost enjoy the, if after I leave,
if they Google it, they're
like wait a minute.
You know, so I kind of find myself
being a little less anxious,
or chip on my shoulder
to like fully explain my resume.
I go simply with entrepreneur.
If they dig a little further,
I'll give them more context.
- [Interviewer] You also
have this awesome story
that I think our fans would
really be interested in hearing,
if they haven't heard from you,
which is going from
your family run business
and building that on your own,
to then becoming a successful investor.
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] Can you just tell us a bit
about that experience
in terms of the Facebook
and Tumblr and Twitter?
- Yep.
So I walked into my dad's liquor store,
it was a liquor store in
New Jersey, one store unit.
In 1996 I launched an
E-commerce version of it,
called Wine Library,
and as you can imagine,
especially with E-commerce
being cool right now,
the fact that I was doing
E-commerce 23 years,
you know, you're talking about,
it was real pioneer shit.
It really worked, the
business went from a four
to a 60 million dollar business
over a very short period of time.
Changed the course of my family's life.
I had done what I wanted,
which is help my family.
I owned none of that business.
I did good, I did right by my family.
And then, YouTube came.
So, I built that business
on the back of E-commerce.
Email marketing, which was
revolutionary at the time.
And then Google AdWords,
which was also completely
revolutionary at the time.
Then YouTube came, and I
started a wine show on YouTube.
A couple months after
YouTube, and that exploded.
And at that point, I
realized wait a minute.
I'm not a great wine merchant,
I'm a great marketer.
I'm a great businessman.
And then YouTube sold to
Google for $1.7 billion.
And to put into context
for your listeners,
$1.7 billion in 2006
would be like if you heard
that TikTok sold for a
trillion dollars today.
It was a big number.
It wasn't, you know, now we have
all the billions running around,
this was back in the day
of hundreds of millions.
Billions weren't being talked about.
So, that was like, fuck.
That was huge.
And I was like damn it.
And I started reading articles
on the Internet about it,
I'm like who are the,
what's this angel investor?
Like I started seeing some terminology.
I literally Googled, angel investor.
I'm like, person that gets into
a deal before it goes public?
I'm like, I like that, I'm gonna do that.
And literally right there,
I'm like I'm gonna start doing that.
And so I started really
going to tech conferences,
like a couple months later.
And I got an incredible
opportunity to invest in Twitter,
from one of the early
employees, the original CTO.
And I did that, and then I made a video
about Twitter versus Facebook
that went viral at Facebook.
I spoke to Facebook,
Mark was in the audience,
he came down and we had
dinner, I got friendly,
and a couple months later he called me
and said his parents were
looking to sell some stock.
And you know, I think he
said my parents, I said yes.
You know?
So I could invest in that,
and then I was getting greedy.
I was like okay, I got
the two things I want,
and then within five minutes of realizing
Tumblr was winning at junior high,
I intuitively was like
okay that's got a shot.
And started you know,
really looking at it.
I had some ideas how to make it better.
Met David Karp, the founder of it,
and got to invest in that.
And so right out the gate, you know,
I had a Hall of Fame investing career,
all three of those were
monster exits for me,
game changing generational wealth returns.
And then I invested more and I did well.
You know, Birch Box and Uber
and lots of little different things,
but never to the same level.
Even with Snapchat and
Pinterest, and Uber,
which were big wins for me.
That was when I didn't
think I was an investor,
that's when I was just
making smart decisions.
You know, I like that feeling.
Let me tell you something very funny.
I feel like I'm, nowhere to that level,
but I'm in a very smart
decision zone right now.
I know, I don't think,
I know that sports trading
cards are about to explode.
I know that I'm 43 and
my generation of fathers
now is starting to have children
right around six, seven, eight, nine, 10.
I know that gambling is a huge culture,
and the way sports cards are today
is you can pull a $50,000 Zion card.
And I know that the sneaker
kids can't get enough inventory
of hard to get sneakers to flip on StockX.
So they're moving to sports cards,
where they can buy a thousand,
and if they're right,
they can really make money.
So literally, this is not a joke,
and it seems very small and
detached from that 2009-era,
'07, '08, '09 era where I
was doing all this investing.
But sometimes I just see stuff
that's very obvious to me,
and you're catching me
during this interview,
literally the entire ride
from the hotel to here,
I'm looking up LeBron rookies,
Messi and Renaldo rookies,
I think wrestling cards are underrated,
so I'm looking for old Andre
the Giant and Hulk Hogan cards.
And I think it's happening.
- [Interviewer] Cool.
I've got a bunch of old NBA cards,
I didn't know that anything
cool came out here back then.
- You should really, you know,
for example, for example.
I think Ben Simmons is
just a jump shot away
from being a top three player in the NBA,
I know he's working on it.
Like, to me, if I'm a
collector here or a flipper,
like literally going
deep on him right now,
he's pretty expensive to begin with
because he's a top player, but like,
you can imagine if he becomes
a NBA champion and a top 10 player,
the arbitrage of selling his cards here,
if I'm right about what's
happening globally,
is gonna be a big deal.
- [Interviewer] Speaking
of smart decisions,
when are you moving your businesses
to the best city in the world?
- So it's a great question.
Because we're opening up Singapore.
We've already actually opened it up.
But we're opening up kind
of officially this fall.
But one of the reasons this
is now the third full trip
I've made for four to
eight days to Australia
is because I very much know
I will be opening up
operations in Australia.
And I've been spending a lot
of time bouncing between,
you know, three or four
of the major cities here,
getting a sense, thinking
about what I like,
what I don't like.
Some of the laws around firing people
is something I don't love about Australia.
(laughter)
But other than that, this is just,
this country is extremely warm to me.
I was a huge advocate of Australian wines
in America in the late 90s,
and was one of the faces of the
kind of secondary revolution
of Australian wines in America.
In the 80s, Pensfold
Grange and a couple others,
Henschke made their mark.
In 1998 to 2002, there was an importer
by the name of Dan Phillips
from America that came here.
And swooped up in a great
way to represent in America
a lot of small producers,
Rusden, and Veritas,
and all these incredible producers.
Wild Duck, and all these great things
that we didn't have in the US.
And it was this huge thing, huge.
And I was at the forefront of it.
So, you know, when I would
come here in 2001, 2004, 2005,
one of those trips was a 17 day trip.
You know, I really got immersed.
And obviously Australia, the UK, the US,
there's a lot of kind
of similar DNA traits.
Obviously there's some differences,
but I'm genuinely excited to when
I'm doing meaningful business
in this great country.
- [Interviewer] We are a
very conservative market,
in terms of some of our big
brands that we have here.
We've got a small market though.
How do you deal with brands
that might have money
to spend but they want to be
conservative all the time,
when your ideas can be
considered the opposite of that?
- Patience.
And conviction.
That's it.
Super simple.
I will not waver.
I do not believe a television commercial
is worth the price in Australia
versus what Instagram and
Facebook and YouTube can do.
I see it every day, look at the data.
And if Callaway Golf
or Eclipse Gum or Nike
or Coca-Cola don't agree
with me, I'm willing to wait.
It's their money.
So you know, what am I gonna do?
You know, I chose to
be in client services,
so I can't cry about it.
I don't dwell.
I yell, and scream, and pontificate,
and passionately plead my case,
and then I just wait for
history to be my co-signer.
(laughter)
- [Interviewer] So when
the saying that the client
is always right, or the
customer is always right,
how do you do it in that scenario?
- I think that the client has control.
The customer is always right,
except you have to be careful,
right, because there's that great saying,
if I listen to my customer, I
would've made faster horses.
Right, so to me the consumer
is the judge and the jury.
A client controls the paycheck.
So you can only do so much.
It's like being mad at your parents.
Like if you don't like what
your parents are making you do, leave.
Like, don't take the money.
Don't let them pay for your Uber,
don't let them pay for your clothes.
If you're such a tough guy.
You know, and so, but I don't
think they're always right.
You know, but they are
the judge and the jury.
But the judge and the
jury are sometimes wrong.
- [Interviewer] And they've got the cash.
- They're the judge and the jury.
Like, you know, I can, again,
I'm looking at these Callaway.
You know, I can convey to
Callaway that like hey,
I can get to more of your
customers for a better price
on LinkedIn than you can
in buying a print ad,
or those billboards, and
they're just gonna, you know,
a lot of companies go on reporting
that has nothing to do with reality.
And that's why they make bad mistakes.
And listen, Vayner has
built one of the largest
independent shops in the
world, slowly but surely,
so enough people say yes.
And I'm very okay with
23 out of 25 saying no.
- [Interviewer] Speaking of cash,
when are you gonna knock
on the Johnsons' door,
and say it's time for me
to hand the keys over?
- So the Johnson, is
the Johnson & Johnson,
you know, empire, I don't
think Woody and Chris
are selling the Jets, the
New York Jets anytime soon.
Which is just fine,
because I don't have the
money to buy it anyway.
The worst thing that could
happen to me in my goal,
is waking up this morning
and finding out the Jets are for sale.
(laughter)
I would be panicking and
you know, scrambling.
And selling my soul.
I don't know.
But I can't worry about
things I can't control.
So I have to worry about
building infrastructure,
and foundation, to creating
the professional success
that allows me to have an at-bat
for my professional dream.
- [Interviewer] We can't let you leave
without doing a bit of an AFL quiz.
(laughter)
- Oh this is not good.
- [Interviewer] Which
is a visual based quiz.
- This is not gonna go well.
(laughter)
You know what, I always
tell people, tell the truth.
Right, like, thank God I'm in this place,
because if I was like the
huckster I was when I was 12,
and tried to act like I knew something,
I would be so exposed right now.
All right.
- [Interviewer] I'm gonna play some clips.
- This is gonna be great.
- [Interviewer] And play some clips,
and you're gonna tell me if
you think that this is legal,
as in not a penalty, you know or illegal.
- Okay, that's cool.
Yep, a penalty, okay.
- [Interviewer] This will play
through the speakers as well.
- Legal.
That was legal, that was clean.
- [Interviewer] Clean, yeah?
- Clean.
- [Interviewer] Correct, yeah.
- Yeah, let's go.
- [Interviewer] And I was listening,
I heard that was Shane Mumford.
- That was a nice shot.
(laughter)
- [Interviewer] Massive hit.
We'll go to the next one.
- Oh, that was tough.
Oh my God.
- [Interviewer] I'll
play it again for you.
So for those listening
at home, Toby Greene.
- [Job] He's karate kicked.
- [Interviewer] Legal or illegal?
- So that looks like a judgment call.
I'm gonna go with.
(sighs)
I'm gonna go with legal.
- [Interviewer] I think
he got weeks for that.
(laughter)
- [Job] I think he got two weeks for that.
- Did he?
You know, yeah.
(laughter)
- [Interviewer] Now, this is
the same player, next one.
- Same players?
Oh, he's really, that's what he does, huh?
That's illegal.
- [Interviewer] No, that one was legal.
- Really?
(laughter)
- [Interviewer] You were
right with the judgment call.
- I think, yeah, yeah.
- [Interviewer] That one was in
what we would call the marking contest.
- Are you able to kick to the chest?
- [Job] You are technically
protecting the ball,
and you're protecting your area.
- I see.
That's good, I like that.
- [Interviewer] Here's the next one,
this one's Andrew Walker,
on one of your ex-teammates.
- [Job] Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Jake Carlisle?
- [Job] He doesn't like seeing this.
- Nice kick.
Oh, my God.
(laughter)
What a play.
That's super legal.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, that's legal.
- Yeah, that's a great athletic play.
Wow.
That's incredible play.
- [Interviewer] And the
next one, this is Barry Hall
on Brent Staker for those playing at home.
- Is Barry Hall in the red and white?
- [Job] Yeah.
- He's got big fuckin' arms, Jesus.
- [Job] Yeah, you should see what happens.
Oh my God.
What a left hook.
I'm gonna go with that's illegal.
- [Interviewer] Yeah.
(laughter)
- What a shot.
- [Interviewer] That was 10 weeks.
10 weeks out after that one.
- Jesus.
- [Interviewer] Yes, we
are a confusing game,
that's for sure, you made a good try.
- Thank you.
It's a, I kinda knew the kick was,
you know what, the second
one was clearly illegal,
but I'm like fuck, are they setting me up?
(laughter)
I don't wanna seem like a soft American.
So you know, it's amazing.
One of the things I'm very fascinated,
you know, footie reminds me
a lot of American football,
like I don't think people
understand, Americans don't.
American football is an American sport.
- [Job] Yeah.
- Like they're trying in the UK,
but like, it is not a global sport.
And what's the second
biggest market for footie?
- [Job] Probably Ireland,
because in Ireland,
they play a game that's
quite similar, Gaelic.
- I see.
- [Job] So that's probably the
second biggest market, yeah.
- I see.
- [Job] But only because there's
some sort of similarities.
- I think, you know,
watching proper football,
or soccer as we call it in
America, get big in America,
between FIFA, the video game.
- [Job] Yeah.
- And English Premier League
now being on television.
You know, I actually see a scenario
where the way video games are playing.
So, is there a great footie video game?
- [Job] That is the biggest problem.
- [Interviewer] They'd
need to spend the money
to make a great footie video game.
- I think if there's a
great footie video game,
and as OTT, over the top, right,
like Stan and Netflix here,
as that gets bigger, and
they just need content.
You know, I can see a footie video game,
and then footie being on Netflix, or Hulu,
or Amazon Prime in America.
I actually am predicting
that a lot of regional sports
like footie, like American
football, like American baseball,
ping-pong, I can see a lot of
things getting more popular
in this globalization of technology.
- [Job] Yeah.
- Like when I watch those clips,
I'm like that's fucking cool.
- [Job] Yeah.
- I just need to watch
more, and have access.
And know the stories.
- [Job] Yeah, yeah.
- [Interviewer] And
we're lucky in Australia,
I think we're in the
top five most attended
sporting events of all time,
in every sport in the region.
- How is the championship played out?
Is it a singular game?
Or is it a series?
- [Job] Yeah, so there's
a top eight finals.
- And how many teams are there overall?
- [Job] 18.
- Okay, so eight teams make the playoffs.
- [Job] Eight team makes the playoffs,
the top four get a double chance,
so if they lose their first
game, they still can stay in.
- I understand.
- [Job] But the bottom four.
- Have to win, I know, once singular.
- [Job] And then the next
round goes to knockouts.
So it goes from eight,
which is four games,
down to another two, two, one, final.
- And the final's a singular game?
Like a SuperBowl.
And it is crazy?
- [Job] Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Ridiculous.
- Everybody in the country watches?
- [Interviewer] Yes.
At the MCG, which you went to,
that's where they always
play it, every time.
- That stadium.
Why?
- [Job] Because it's the
best stadium in the world.
- Got it, got it.
And what date is that?
- [Job] The end of September.
The last Saturday of September.
- Oh, so we're getting there.
- [Job] Yeah, we're not far away, yeah.
- [Interviewer] Job's old team
is hanging onto a finals
position at the moment.
The Melbournes, they
lost on the weekend but.
- Who's the top team right now?
- [Job] The top 10 is Geelong.
- And are they a historically great team,
or is this a good year for them?
- [Job] Last 20 years have
been a really strong team.
- Understood.
- [Interviewer] Yup, there've been
some good teams that are up there.
- And who won it last year?
- [Job] West Coast Eagles.
So the team over in Perth.
- Yep, and was that an upset,
or were they the best team last year?
- [Job] They were probably, no,
they were the best team last year.
- And this year?
- [Job] I think they're
gonna win it again this year.
- You do?
- [Job] They're gonna
go back to back, yeah.
- [Interviewer] It doesn't happen often,
but there's been lately, there has been.
- They're hot?
- [Job] Yeah, they're playing well.
- [Interviewer] The Bulldogs
won a few seasons ago,
and they're probably the
closest in recent history
that have won as a team that was just
out of nowhere, came and won.
- [Job] Sort of like a wild card spot.
- Like an eight and they got hot?
- [Interviewer] Yeah that's what happened.
- I love that shit.
- [Job] Yeah it's fairy tale stuff.
- [Interviewer] We actually
just changed a rule in the game
where you used to be
able to, if it was a tie,
you'd come back the next
week and play again.
- The same game?
- [Job] Same game.
- From the start?
- [Job] Yeah.
- Fresh, or overtime?
- [Job] Nope, start again.
- [Interviewer] Start again the next week
as if the game had never been played.
- Get the fuck outta here.
- [Job] It happened.
About six or seven years ago,
they had to have another week of game.
- The championship?
- [Job] The championship game.
- Ended in a tie?
- [Job] Ended in a tie, week one.
- I can't, so hold on,
I know we have to run,
but I have to get this out of my system.
So wait, your SuperBowl, your
championship, ends in a tie.
Which means they have to
play it the next week.
- [Job] Yup.
- Explain to me the
hysteria during that week.
That must have been, the buildup
must have been remarkable.
- [Interviewer] It was crazy.
- [Job] You can imagine the logistics
of something that, the
biggest game of the year
now has to be repeated.
So everything that needs to happen again.
- Did the country shut down that week?
Just building up to the next week?
- [Job] Melbourne shuts
down completely, yeah.
- Wow.
- [Job] We have a public holiday.
On the Friday before the grand final.
- Before?
- [Job] Before, yeah.
- It plays on a Saturday?
- [Interviewer] Yeah, we play Saturday.
Day game, in the middle of the day, yeah.
- Interesting.
(laughter)
I need to be more strategic
next year on my trip,
and come during that, yes.
That'd be cool.
Awesome.
- [Job] Gary, it's been
so good chatting with you.
- [Interviewer] Thank you very much.
- Thank you man, thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
- [Interviewer] Great, cheers.
- That was fun.
- Thanks very much.
- Yeah.
