Nick D'Urbano on Launching Pistons RareAcces
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Nick D'Urbano is the Co-Founder and COO of RareCircles, a next-generation membership platform that helps turn community engagement into revenue. RareCircles just launched Pistons RareAccess in partnership with the Detroit Pistons, a community that gives fans access to private Huddle Sessions alongside players and legends, limited merch drops, exclusive experiences, and opportunities to give feedback to the team. Brian and Nick talk chat about building fan communities, how sports teams can take advantage of web3 projects, and how teams and leagues are innovating fan experiences with technology.
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Full Transcript
Brian Bosche:
Alright. Hey everyone. Welcome to High Tea Hoops. I am your host Brian Bosche, and today we have a very special guest, Nick D’Urbano, co-founder, and COO of RareCircles. Nick, welcome to the show. How you doing?
Nick D'Urbano:
Great, thanks. Thanks for having me.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, I'm super excited for this episode cuz it's a crossover of a lot of my different interests in sports, tech, creative, this fan experience. So if you just wanna give like a quick overview of kind of your background. What is RareCircles? What is Pistons RareAccess? I'd love to just hear off the top. What are you building?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so RareAccess is, is really a, a platform that enables sports teams and brands to unlock unique experiences with their fans. So you might call it a, a rewards or engagement platform. Uh, really it's about going under the hood and giving super fans unique experiences, especially unique digital experiences that they can't get anywhere else. So, I mean, if you've watched, um, you know, uh, the Netflix series, uh, the Formula One Oh yeah. Um, what, what's it called again? The, uh,
Brian Bosche:
Drive to Survive. You're a big
Nick D'Urbano:
Fan, drive to Survive. I'm a big fan, but the, the, the, the kind of the point is, right, everyone wants to move behind scenes deeper into the experience. Exactly. And so yeah, we're trying to unlock some of these unique experiences for, uh, for fans that, you know, meet with, uh, meet with players, get to hear from the front office, uh, get to vote on, you know, exciting initiatives that goes directly to the front office. Um, so give fans a voice and, and make them feel like they're, uh, you know, that they have a seat at the table.
Brian Bosche:
And congratulations on your launch. You just launched Pistons, RareAccess, your First, that's name partnership. Congratulations. As someone who's launched, I think we launched at Slope like six times. We just kept calling it Launch every time we'd messed it up or wanted to do something better. So we just kept launch. You just keep saying you have to build on the momentum, so congratulations. What, uh, what kind of made you pick the Pistons or what kind of started that partnership with the Pistons to make you wanna start here, um, with this franchise?
Nick D'Urbano:
Well, I, I think that the Pistons have been, you know, really innovative in their approach to adopting new technologies and to testing different ways to engage their fan base. So, you know, we've, we've just found a really great partner in the Pistons to take what we're building and run with it. Um, and so that was really, that was really the catalyst for working with them specifically versus some other teams in some other leagues. And obviously the NBA as a, as a league is also quite advanced, uh, from a technology standpoint, um, especially with NBA Top shot, et cetera. So, uh, the, the combination of those two things made, uh, made it made, it made it a no-brainer.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. As, as some, I lived in Detroit for three years and had to hike it out to the palace, which was like 45 minutes from actual downtown Detroit where I lived. So they're the Detroit Pistons, but it's really like the Auburn Hills pistons that we would go out to, and I just missed them going to Little Caesars downtown with their new arena, their entire new district down there, which looks incredible. So, to that kind of momentum of, of them coming downtown, of them, getting that new arena kind of add to all of these new fan experiences that are coming to the Pistons.
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah, abso absolutely. There's a bunch of, of, of stuff that we haven't announced yet that, that we're going to be running with them. Um, so there, there's a lot of really kind of special initiatives that we'll be rolling out. Not not this season, but, but not next season, uh, 23, 24. Um, and so yeah, the, uh, the new arena, um, and, uh, some interesting behind the scenes access, uh, which, which will, uh, which will be announced soon.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Well, they're a fun team. I just went to N B A Paris game to, to cover them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So got to meet the players during the practices, obviously got to see the game itself, young team, you know, they're, it's a little bit like, uh, going for Webe, trying to get that number one pick this season, but a lot of great personalities that were super fun. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, I think it's a great fit for that, for that first team. But I wanted to take a step back a little bit and go a little bit more into rare circles, kind of your startup journey. So can you talk a little bit about your professional background and how you kind of got into this Web three, got into this space a little bit more?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I, I started my career at Deloitte. I was in their, in their m and a group doing a lot of work with, uh, both technology companies and retail companies. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, I left that and, uh, and moved to New York. I'm based in Montreal, or was based in Montreal. Uh, moved to New York and, and spent about a decade building and scaling e-commerce and retail businesses in Manhattan. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so had a, had a kind of cut my teeth with, uh, you know, the operational side and, and saw the evolution of how, uh, brands started to engage their customers from a web one modality to a web two modality, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, all of a sudden social became, became a big, uh, went, went from being kind of this like unique little thing that a couple of folks were doing to obviously becoming pervasive and a and a kind of critical part of any marketing team's, um, you know, activation and strategy.
Um, and so, uh, when my, my business partner also was at Deloitte, he left, uh, to start a company called Franken Oak in the retail space, if you're mm-hmm. <affirmative> from North America. It was one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies, um, in, uh, in, in the US and Canada. And, uh, and so we had very similar, very similar backgrounds. And, uh, one thing we, we, we both realized, uh, coming out of those experiences in 2020, um, was that the, the landscape of Web two and social in particular was changing, right? The cost to acquire customers, the cost to engage customers was becoming brands in general, more expensive brands, more, yeah. Sports teams. Any organization that's reliant on engaging customers on a social channel, the engagement rates are really low. Emails are very transactional. Like, what is that next layer of experience and fan engagement or customer engagement, and how can we unlock that? So that was really the kind of nugget that that brought us down into, into rare circles and, and had us start experimenting in this space and building out product.
Brian Bosche:
So, rare Circles is really kind of Web three community fan engagement across any type of brand, um, or any type of, you know, organization that engages their customers. And then rare access is more of the sports angle. Is that how you
Nick D'Urbano:
Describe Yeah, access, rare Access is kind of a managed service approach. So we're helping, uh, organizations run, run their programming. But, uh, but rare, rare circles in particular, I would say is, is, uh, is web three and web two mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, focus. So our, our whole shtick is not about necessarily a particular piece of technology, but how do we, how do we create loyalty experiences mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, that, that are, that are resonant, that are sticky. So for some, for some organizations that have a web three ready audience, you can engage with them using, uh, using smart contracts and tokens and NFTs. Um, and then with everyone else you can engage with them, you know, just with a standard kind of, you know, email or subscription modality. So there are different ways to engage. So we built different tools to accommodate different types of, uh, you know, different types of experiences
Brian Bosche:
And what makes the sports industry, uh, really ripe for this type of web three approach, this community driven approach, what makes this special, um, for a rare access type model?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. I mean, the, the, the one key takeaway from, from Web three as far as I'm concerned, is it, it, it did a really great job or does a really great job of, um, coalescing, you know, fans together coalescing, um, uh, community together and, and making folks feel like they are part of a mission, that they have a seat at the table. Um, and that, that is, uh, that is, uh, very much true in the sports section. I, you'd be hard pressed to find, you know, even like the lowest tier on the MLB or the N B A or the NHL probably has a more robust fan base than any brand, uh, you know, that's out there, right? Yeah, totally. So folk folks are, are incredibly engaged. Um, so it's just a very ripe space to play in. If you're talking about loyalty and engagement. Um, there're there's just a, a real, uh, a real nice cohort of, of fans that are, uh, you know, fanatical about, about their teams. And so it creates a, a really kind of exciting, exciting place to play.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. So, yeah, I, I completely agree with sports, with teams, especially, uh, they have those fans. You grow up as a certain fan, you have your regional loyalties, city loyalties. Um, so it, it is a great space for this, but why does it have to be web three? Why does it have to be kind of based on blockchain versus just offering a membership, you know, that you can pay with your credit card?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. Well, I, I mean, the, the truth is Brian, it doesn't, um mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, I think each, each team, each organization can approach it in a, in a way that they see fit. I really think it has to do with what's your audience, right? Yeah. Are they, you know, is, is the Venn diagram of, you know, your audience and a Web three audience is that, um, you know, is, is there a lot of overlap there? And if there is, you know, uh, we, we've always felt like, uh, adding web three, uh, activations, a web three audience is like, you know, throwing fuel on the fire just creates more excitement and creates more engagement. Um, so if, if you have, uh, a strong audience that's, uh, that's already in the web three space, it makes sense. If your audience falls outside of that, um, you know, you can still take advantage of the activations, you can still take advantage of the platform, but we'll make it a lot less cumbersome to get involved. So you don't need, you know, all these kind of web three components. You don't need to learn about a new technology in order to participate. Um, so, you know, I think it really depends on who, what the audience profile looks like.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. So I, so I guess if it's, you know, it's technology, you find the right technology to fit whatever the, the team is looking for, the, or the brand is looking for Yeah. And then try to make that tailored experience for them.
Nick D'Urbano:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Brian Bosche:
And then with them, what, what kind of challenges are you seeing maybe brands now, or what shifts are you seeing in the market where sports teams are going, you know, what, we are seeing the success of Drive to Survive. We have these fans and we're seeing they're demanding more X so we need to provide them this service. What kind of, what opportunities or challenges do you see that is making this more relevant now than it's ever been before?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah, I mean, the more teams you talk to, the more, the more, yeah. And you'll start to see over the course of the next 12 months or 24 months, you know, a ton of teams doing, um, these types of initiatives, right? These, yeah. You know, hard knock style, hbo o totally. Or Netflix, every,
Brian Bosche:
Every sport. Now you got full swing breakpoint, uhoh, you've got the NFL quarterback one.
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. You could do it at the league level, you could do it at the team level. Vees had one and said, yeah, there's, I mean, there's, there's, there's, there's just a bunch. So, um, you're, you're gonna see a lot more attention being spent on, uh, on, on kind of building media in that, in that vein. Um, and so, uh, for us, it's, it's, it's pretty ripe to, um, you know, to be offering digital experiences that fans could unlock that, that make them feel like they're closer to the club, that give them, you know, some of that behind the scenes access, uh, that they crave, um, experiences. You know, if you're a season ticket holder, you're getting tickets to a game, right? Yeah. What are the season experiences that you can get throughout the season that, um, you know, that don't necessarily take place at the game, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but that take place around all the edges of, um, of the organization, uh, behind the locker room, you know, during the draft, uh, on the way to a game, right? Yeah. Um, uh, you know, uh, so, so there's a, there's a lot to kind of unpack there, and there's a lot of interesting kernels of insight and stories and, um, and, and really just content that, that folks are interested in, in consuming and excited to, to dig into.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Well, you're right. It's the web two model of, of just the team's broadcasting everything to the fans. It's just one to many. There's no real interaction or community building from it, versus Web three where the fans want to feel like they are part of that team, part of that club. They actually have the two-way communication with them, which teams are trying to take advantage of now. So you describe kind of the passes and what that actual, like two-way communication, what the benefits of getting a pass Yeah. Looks like.
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. A a, absolutely. So when you buy one of these passes, uh, we, we, what we've built is like a community portal. So pistons are access, you can actually log in with your pass. And really that is the product, right? The product happens that by owning some, uh, you know, some nft or some, you know, uh, whether it's a piece of plastic or an actual, uh, you know, digital card, um, the real values in the experience itself, uh mm-hmm. <affirmative>, these are experiences I would add that that expire at the end of a season, right? So they're not these like ephemeral things that, that last, uh, in perpetuity. Um, these are season based passes, and we're using NFTs as a, as a, as a, as a, as a, as an entry tool into the experience. And so once you, once you log in, there are, uh, a few different activations that happen on a regular basis.
Uh, for one, we have these huddle sessions, which we're really excited about. We just did the first one, uh, last week with Alicia Jeffries, the, the piston cmo, which is amazing, right? So all of a sudden you have all these super fans popping up onto a, a live video stream, and you can call it an AMA or, or a town hall. And, uh, we source questions directly from fans and, uh, and they can pop on and ask questions live directly as well. That's moderated by us. And, and it was just a really amazing experience for, you know, fans to get direct access to totally, um, you know, to the front office, to the C-Suite, uh, in that, in that respect was incredible. And there were some great stories, uh, right. Things that you don't read about, things that you can't get by, you know, just Googling, um, or watching ESPN or, or whatever the case may be. So, uh, that was really exciting. We have a couple more coming out in March one with Ryan Terrell and the Motor City Cruise, which is gonna be, uh, which is gonna be super fun. Um, as well as, uh, one of the players on the Pistons, which hasn't been announced yet. We'll be announcing it next week.
Brian Bosche:
Nice. Breaking
Nick D'Urbano:
News. Uh, yeah, break breaking news, uh, also, no, no name. We're also doing no name yet, um, uh, you know, follower access for war. Yeah. Uh, and, and obviously, uh, we're, we're also doing that with coaches as well. Uh, so we, we, we got, you know, John Beeline and, and, and Ben Carlo. And so there's, there's just like a bunch of really great personalities that we're gonna get to dig into throughout the remainder of this season, and then heading into next. Um, so that, that's just one of the activations. So these like live video streams that are embedded into the product is one, they're gated, um, polling and proposals. So we ask the fans, yeah, this
Brian Bosche:
One's crazy. This one's dangerous. <laugh>.
Nick D'Urbano:
No, it's great though. It's, it's, it's really great. Like, what's that feedback loop with fans? Totally. How get them involved, how do we ask them relevant questions and get their insights? And so what
Brian Bosche:
Fans are skimming the game where they're actually invest investing in these passes? Yeah,
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah, exactly. They wanna be heard and, and the front office and, and the team wants to hear from them. So, you know, we're, we're building out, um, you know, uh, proposals and, and, uh, and voting mechanics to, to help kind of connect those dots together on a regular basis, which is really exciting. So you'll be able to vote on key initiatives that, uh, that will go directly to the front office and, and make your voice heard. So the, the voting piece is quite fun, and obviously there's a bunch of prizes and, you know, things that we're doing to engage folks when, once, you know, to vote and, and, and reward them for that action. Um, and then, uh, and then behind the scenes content. So we got a bunch of really cool, you know, interview series and, uh, archival footage and, and, uh, and some great kind of, um, some great, some great media and, and, and content that, uh, that folks will get access to as well as part of the, as part of the program. So those are, those are kinda the main things that you can expect. And depending on what tier you buy, you can also unlock physical experiences as well, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> tickets, game experiences, like, you know, sitting courtside watching the team, uh, during the practice session playing some pickup ball and court, et cetera. So there's a bunch of cool, you know, sign memorabilia, et cetera. So depending on what tier you buy, there's some like, surprising delight, uh, features that are, uh, embedded into the experience as well.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Well, there's a couple things I like on that, on this model and this way of approaching it is, one, like when you're unlocking these experiences, I love the virtual events, the physical events, but I've also seen you can partner with different designers and have exclusive merch drops, or if you have the passes, you can get access to Pistons gear that you would never have access to otherwise. So you can bring in different elements around the culture of basketball and not just, you know, the season pass where you get the tickets and get to watch. Um, so I, I really like how you can pull in those different aspects. Has that been a focus too, of like interests around basketball, not just focusing on the tickets and play itself, but you can bring in designers, you can have art installations, you can have musicians come in, there's a whole world outside of the actual game.
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah, abs absolutely. I mean, especially with basketball is so tied to culture, um mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so, you know, bringing in, uh, collaborators, influencers, designers, et cetera, and, uh, creating exclusive offers, content experiences for the community is, is obviously incredibly exciting. Um, whether you're web three or web two, I mean, those, those types of colabs are, are always, you know, are always fun. Um, so we have, uh, we have a few merch drops and, and things of that nature coming out, um, for this season in particular, which, uh, yeah, to your point is, is incredibly exciting and great for, for the fans to, you know, to get cop some, some really limited edit merch that, that, you know, there might only be 50 handmade items. And, and they'll, they'll, they'll get to, uh, they'll get to support that.
Brian Bosche:
Well, when the Pistons went to the Paris for the NBA Paris game, they all had custom sweatshirts with these incredible designs on the back. And I posted it like, man, it was like, that is so cool. Like, how do we get those? And you just like, Nope, they only made 'em for those players for the game. And that was like, ah, I want that.
Nick D'Urbano:
It's funny you should say that cuz someone with the Rare Access Pass did get access to one of that, one of those, one of those sets. Yeah. So, so there was a member of the, of the Rare, the giveaway community Yeah. Was one of our giveaways. And they, they did get access to, uh, merch that only the team and the, uh, um, and the employees had access to. So, uh, there was one lucky rare access holder That's amazing. Who was sporting some Pistons, Paris Merch, uh, by virtue of the fact they're, they're, they're a member, which is cool.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, love that. You couldn't even buy that in Paris, you know, that that's something
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. You could, you can buy it anywhere. Yeah, exactly.
Brian Bosche:
Uh, another thing I really like about this model is I moved recently, or not recently, two year I moved to London two years ago. Uh, I spent a lot of time in the European basketball community, and there are a ton of N B A and Pistons fans. And, you know, every NBA team fans sprinkled around Europe and, and the uk there's a huge N B A community here, and they especially want to feel closer to the team. You know, when you're in, they almost, it's almost like rarefied air when you're covering like an N B A team in Paris and every European media, uh, source com, every single broadcaster. It's so exciting. But then I would see a Pistons game in Detroit, and there's like maybe two people covering that game. There's like, it's rare air where there's, you know, there's 41 games and there's just, but it's such a special thing here, and they definitely want to be closer to those teams that they're fans of. Can you talk about how this kind of gives that to international fans and fans outside the city who may not be able to have the unique access to the team and go get to see games on a consistent basis?
Nick D'Urbano:
A a absolutely. I think one, one thing that's really interesting, most of these teams, um, you know, they have, they're, they're kind of their email lists and their, their audience size is actually quite small relative to their actual fandom, right? Yeah. Those teams in general, especially an organization like the Pistons that has such a storied franchise or a storied history has, you know, millions of fans all around the world. And so mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, to your point, how do you engage with those fans, um, on a regular basis and, and, and, you know, keep them close to the kind of proverbial hoop, you know, no pun intended, but yeah, that, that, that really is the one of, one of the, one of the ancillary benefits of, of these types of programs, which is like, if it's digital, it's scalable, and then you're able to attract and, and connect with, uh, connect with fans, you know, on the other side of the world and, and let them feel like they're still, um, like they're still, you know, uh, around the block from the, uh, yeah. From Little Caesars, right. Uh, arena. And so that, that, that, that, that, that is one of the benefits of this. And we, we have, um, we're access holders, uh, from all across the globe. We have folks in Europe, we have folks in Asia, we have, uh, folks in, you know, Australia. So there's, you know, a great, um, a great, uh, a great number of, of, uh, of fans even in Canada, I would say. You know, like the Detroit obviously. I mean, Detroit is the border
Brian Bosche:
Two, two seconds from Canada,
Nick D'Urbano:
Right? Right, right. Yeah. So, so we got, uh, we got quite a, quite a few international, uh, international fans as part of the experience as
Brian Bosche:
Well. Yeah. Detroit's north of Canada as a fun fact, if anyone's interested in that
Nick D'Urbano:
<laugh>, it's a, yeah, that is a unique little
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, it's a little right across the river. People forget
Nick D'Urbano:
Geographic. Yeah, exactly.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Uh, yeah. It's, it's so interesting. Like a, a fan meets or goes to the N B A Paris game and then the next month they're on a virtual summit or virtual call with the C M O of the Pistons, you know, a team that they just discovered and just became fans of and really lock 'em in. So, yeah, I, I think that's such a huge benefit. I wanna talk little bit about the, the scarcity of these passes and how much does that mean? Yeah, because you mint only a limited number of each type of pass there is, you know, it's rare, rare access, rare circles, it is a smaller community. It, what's the advantage of having that versus just giving anyone who wants to pay access to it and there's an unlimited number that can have that access?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah, I mean, there, there're different models, right? So, you know, similar to e-commerce, like you could sell something unlimited supply, you could sell something with unlimited supply, you could sell something on a subscription. Um, we're we, you know, we don't subscribe to a particular modality. Uh, we have tools that enable our teams and our brands to execute whatever strategy they feel will resonate with their audience and with their fans. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, you know, with a, with a scarcity model, I think that that works, especially if you have, uh, you know, physical activations that you're doing and you want to kinda cap, you know, cap the, the, the, the supply or the inventory or your, by virtue of the fact that you're doing physical activations, your default capped on, on a specific number of, of units. Um, and so that's, that's certainly, uh, you know, one approach. But we have other organizations that, uh, are are doing the exact opposite where, you know, it's, uh, it's unlimited. Okay. Um, where certain parts of the experience are actually free, uh, you know, yeah. Free for fans to engage. And then there might be premium experiences that you can pay up for, uh, if, if you so choose. So, um, you know, different, different ways to structure the experience depending on, uh, depending on the audience. Um, yeah.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because yeah, it's just like, okay, there's 150 of these, it's kind of like season tickets, you know, like if you wanna buy a suite or buy the court side Yeah. There's a limited number of those, so you're almost kind of replicating that experience, which makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Um, some, something I've seen with kind of platforms that try to engage these fans in a new way and try to kind of bring them into these two-way conversations is it's so hard to get them off of existing social media channels, which have all dumped billions of dollars into acquiring their user bases to actually get them to spend time on these new community platforms. Whether that's Discord or, or you know, the rare access community platform. How do you get over that challenge to actually get people to spend time on rare access? Or is it even not the goal of a Pistons rare access type, uh, pass or community pass?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. You know, I don't necessarily think it's like time spent in app, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so it's, it's, it's a little bit different. Um, cuz it really is reward based, right? It's, it's, you know, you're coming in there to do a very specific action. It's not a chat forum where you're spending, you know, multiple hours on like a discord, you know, talking with folks, um, or
Brian Bosche:
Even a consumption where you're, where you're going through tons of content, right? It's not meant to be, right.
Nick D'Urbano:
E Exactly. So there, there's a lot of, uh, there are a lot of activations that actually link out to third party partners or through special promotions, right? Um, et cetera. So really you can almost think of it as like a hub for you to, to unlock your experience, right? Where do I go to collect, collect experience? Totally. Uh, whether that, whether that actually happens on the platform, it happens somewhere else. It's a, it's a consolidated, you know, it's a consolidated user experience where you can, um, where you can access everything in one, in one go. So, so,
Brian Bosche:
Um, it's not necessarily like the piston social media team is uploading behind the scenes footage every day. So you're wanting people to go into the platform every day to see it. It's more like, we have this really special reward for you that's a behind the scenes piece of content log in to actually experience that and consume it,
Nick D'Urbano:
Right? Yeah. So, you know, there could be that, so you could have, you know, behind like pay content, but, you know, most there are these like special, special initiatives that we're doing, but it's not a media platform where you're, you're just like constantly drumming up, you know, um, you know, pieces of content on a regular basis. We're not the athletic, right? So it's, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's a little bit different. But yeah. Again, you know, all of these different activations are like modules, right? So there's a polling module, there's a content module, there's all these different modules, the video conferencing, et cetera. Um, and so teams really get to decide like, all right, what is that, that right experience? How much of you know, a, B, C, or D am I going to use? And you can craft an experience that that's right for, for your audience. So it's, we're playing with different Lego blocks of tools. Totally. And each team, each organization, you know, will, will kind of structure them in a, uh, in a slightly different way.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. And for the teams themselves, like the pistons, other than just kind of the, the, I guess the past revenue that they're getting, what is in it for them? What do they get out of partnering with a rare access to create these type of experiences?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. Well, certainly there's a revenue component to it. Um, but more than that, I think, um, you know, they're, they're looking at different ways to engage their, their audience, right? They're not paying lip service to the fact that they, they wanna create unique and memorable experiences for their fans, uh, and especially the diehard fans, right? Yeah. Especially fans who live and breathe the pistons. Um, how do you, how do you engage them? How do you keep 'em coming back? How do you create experiences that are fresh? Um, and how do you, uh, how do you innovate? How do you innovate in this, uh, in this kind of loyalty and engagement space? Uh, which has felt fairly stagnant for the past, you know, decade or two. Yeah. Um, and so, so that, that, that's really another, another element here that, uh, that needs to be said. Um, and so that, that, I think those are kind of the two main, main benefits right now. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, excuse me, in, in engaging, uh, in engaging with us.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Uh, it's just kind of building the over, you know, growing the overall pie of the most super fans, bringing in more fans, getting that energy around the team. Um, yeah.
Nick D'Urbano:
What was it, Kevin? Kevin, I don't know if you just read this, but it, Kevin Kelly's a thousand True Fans, right? Which is like a very famous article written by the founder of Wired Magazine. Right. But that, that concept of like building an evangel, an evangelist user base, right? Yeah. And then harnessing that. I think, you know, in, in the Pistons case, it's not a thousand but 10,000 or a hundred thousand true fans. Yeah. Um, and how do you take that nucleus and really, you know, tend to it and, and make sure that those folks, um, are feeling the, are, are feeling the love. So, um, because that, that only helps, you know, that's like an army of, uh, supporters and marketers Yeah. And evangelists that are gonna go out and help help, you know, uh, build build the brand over time.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Whether it's the Bad Boys era or it's kind of what the pistons are going through now where it's a little bit of the how do we rebuild this team? Yeah. Having those folks
Nick D'Urbano:
Remember. So, so the, uh, the Pistons CMO and the huddle session, if I can add a little bit of, of sure. Like a tidbit of insight. She, she said something interesting, which, cause I think Troy Weaver was talking about, you know, that cuz a lot of people are talking about the rebuilding of the pistons. Uh, I like the way she framed it or that he framed it, which was it's not a rebuild, it's a restoration. Right. Cuz there's so much, there's so much, uh, uh, history, there's so much value, it's history Exactly. That, you know, rebuild is maybe not the right, not the right word. Uh, and I thought that was, uh, that was interesting. Uh,
Brian Bosche:
It's the same with the city. It's, it's, there's this incredible skyscrapers, there's, it's an incredible architectural city that's, you know, was largely abandoned when I was there. There were many, many abandoned skyscrapers, completely gutted. And they have these beautiful, you see these photos of these beautiful old buildings and they're restoring it, they're restoring the city building by bidding building. I can't believe when I go back there, you know, how much the, the downtown area has been restored.
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's absolutely incredible. Absolutely.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Uh, could this same model apply to individual athletes? Is there something unique about teams or can athletes themselves do a rare access where they give exclusive experiences for themselves?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah, I mean, they, they certainly can. Um, the, the challenge with athletes is the, there really isn't as much infrastructure to manage some of these projects, right? When we talk about brands and teams, like there are marketing teams that run and manage that brand and that entity. And there are very few athletes that have that infrastructure built in. Um, and so that, that
Brian Bosche:
To provide the actual rewards to provide the content Yeah. Well, to provide events and
Nick D'Urbano:
E e exactly. It's, it's always difficult to ask, uh, individuals to, to kind of create something new from scratch. A lot of, a lot of individuals don't have a lot of, you know, activations that they're doing. Uh, so, you know, they have to almost like invent it as they go. So that is a challenge, but it's certainly possible. And, and there are, um, certain types of players or individuals that, uh, that, that are doing quite a lot, right. And that are brands unto themselves and then have, you know, clothing lines or shoe lines or, you know, whatever, perfumes and underwears and, and they're doing all kinds of activations. And in those circumstances and cases where they, they do have, you know, a team managing, you know, uh, some of those products and, and initiatives, um, this can certainly be a way to take folks off of a, you know, pay to play media platform like social and actually engage them in a, in a direct channel that's less transactional than email, right? So, uh, it's more about community building and it's more about, you know, issuing rewards and engaging loyal, loyal fans, um, directly. So, uh, certainly is, is, is a possibility. Haven't had any, uh, athletes on our, on our platform yet, but I'm sure, um, over the course of time, we
Brian Bosche:
Certainly will. So if it's a LeBron James who has the whole infrastructure around him of businesses being launched, media companies versus a lot of NBA players still can't even do user-generated content when they get brand deals. You know, they're just pointing the, the camera at themselves trying to do something. There's no team around them for, for the nba. Exactly. You know, at the top league. Yeah,
Nick D'Urbano:
It is, it is more, it is, it is definitely more challenging to, uh, to scale those types of initiatives out.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Cool. So what's next for air circles? Rare access. What are you kind of, what's the, what's the big vision? What are you pushing for?
Nick D'Urbano:
So we got, I mean, we got a bunch of really great teams in the pipeline that we'll be announcing soon, so that, that's exciting across different leagues. Um, so we've been, uh, we've been hard at work getting those, getting those underway. Um, so you'll, you'll see, uh, you'll see some new activations and, and what what'll be fun is you'll see folks doing different types of activations with different types of, you know, strategies and initiatives. Right? Um, so you'll see, uh, you'll see some teams, you know, leveraging some of the tools, different approaches, web two, web three. Yeah. You know, um, in, in, in different ways. So that, that'll certainly be exciting to see, uh, to see the kind of technology disseminate across, uh, a wide variety of, of teams in different use cases. Uh, so that, that's, that's really our goal is to just keep trucking away and, and keep, uh, you know, keep, uh, trying to add value to teams and most importantly, to fans, um, to make them feel like, uh, like they're that much closer to the organization, um, and, and create some really unique moments.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. I can't wait to use my Pistons pass. Uh, I also, like, am I just gonna have a portfolio for Access Pass? So you're gonna get all my teams and I just have to subscribe to all of them. I
Nick D'Urbano:
Bundle it. That's, that's that, that's the goal, Brian. I mean, if you have all of them, then we'll, we'll have to do a special class, like, you know, un the one key to unlock them all. Right?
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, yeah. Do the bundle, do the, the, the Detroit bundle where you get all the teams in one, but then you have, they get the teams to collaborate, which is a whole nother
Nick D'Urbano:
Story. Yeah, yeah.
Brian Bosche:
Uh, no, that
Nick D'Urbano:
Sounds, well they're already, they're already sharing, they're already sharing facilities. Right. So that's true. Uh, at least with the Pistons and the, and the Red Wing. So, uh, we're not that far off.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, totally. Uh, anything to plug what's coming up next? Anything, anything anywhere anyone can follow?
Nick D'Urbano:
Yeah. Uh, you know, rare access at Rare Access, uh, xyz on, on, on Twitter, rare circles.com, uh, to check out some of the, the brand specific activations that we're up to. Um, we got, we got a bunch of stuff in the pipeline. It's super exciting. So yeah, keep your, keep your eyes peeled and uh, more to come soon.
Brian Bosche:
Awesome. Thanks Nick. I appreciate you coming on.
Nick D'Urbano:
You got it.
