00:00We're here with Sandy Agrawal on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
00:03He is the CEO and the founder at TAP. It is great to have you here.
00:07Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Chairman.
00:08Your company is doing some very cool things at the intersection of fans being engaged in new and inventive ways
00:14with sports and wagering and so much more. E-commerce as well.
00:18Tell us what the company is all about for anyone a bit unfamiliar.
00:21TAP started with the simple idea of creating passive viewing into active engagement for customers
00:27by not only bringing them interactivity, but also by bringing them the ability to buy goods, place bets,
00:33so they have a more enhanced experience viewing.
00:36The idea is to bring customer delight over what we already have now with television viewing.
00:42I love learning so much about the founder's journey.
00:45Talk to me about what this has been like for you and the company over the last more than a decade
00:49and any learned lessons as a founder that maybe you wish you had learned a little bit earlier in your journey, Sandy?
00:55Sure. Many, many.
00:56I think experience is the sum of all mistakes, and we made a lot of mistakes,
01:01but hopefully it's all adding up to building some great experiences.
01:05The journey has really started with many years of having worked in media,
01:09but being at a part of a tech platform or tech journey through these multiple decades
01:15and learning that, you know, it was always an insatiable desire to create personalized experiences.
01:22So think about a world where we had three television networks with general entertainment
01:27to now, on-demand, whatever programming you want in whatever format.
01:31And where TAP fits in is now using those building blocks to create enhanced experiences
01:36and buying experiences leading to new revenue opportunity companies,
01:40new revenue opportunities for media companies.
01:42Yeah, I mean, the digital landscape and how fans and users are interacting with that landscape is changing all the time.
01:48And then you throw in the element of sports wagering, not just here in the United States, but around the globe.
01:54Talk to me about some of the ways you expect that landscape to continue to evolve, Sandy,
01:58in even just the next few years.
01:59Absolutely.
02:00It was, firstly, a very hard engineering thing to solve.
02:03But our idea was to take away the resistance, so to enable single screens.
02:07So when you're on TV, you're watching a game, and you get offered a wager right there on things,
02:12saying, hey, if you put five bucks in, and if somebody is third down and three, can you convert it?
02:17And if it converts, we'll pay you 50 bucks, right there, getting you engaged.
02:21And also giving fans statistics and information that gets them not only more involved in the viewing experience,
02:27but also for them to study more, search more, and basically get involved in the game.
02:32And the idea here is, therefore, to create more revenue opportunities and better experiences for fans.
02:39And it sounds like you have a new, exciting partnership with DirecTV, more specifically in South America.
02:44How did that relationship come about, and what does that mean for, let's say, soccer fans in Colombia?
02:49So we are live. Thank you for bringing that up, J.D.
02:51We are live in Latin America.
02:53It's been a lot of work. Shout out to the team.
02:55They did a great job. We are live with DirecTV, and the largest and one of the most premium distributed networks,
03:01media distribution networks in Latin America, and with the biggest sportsbook,
03:05or one of the biggest sportsbooks in Colombia, BetPlay.
03:08And we are actually live. It's been years of work.
03:11We've got two patents on it, and customers are loving it.
03:14Yeah, it sounds like there's a really cool in-game experience with Panini trading cards as well.
03:19What should people know about that partnership,
03:21and what does that actually look like for someone who's sitting at home watching TV
03:25and interacting with your product in real time?
03:27So firstly, as I explained for betting, it was very straightforward.
03:30You see odds, and you can place a bet with one command, one click on the remote.
03:34Right, that's it. No resistance. It's right there.
03:36And now we've taken that to the next level by bringing commerce in and bringing in Panini trading cards.
03:41So again, in-game, when you're watching a soccer show, you can pick your appropriate pack,
03:47and one click, and it gets delivered to your home. That's the best part.
03:50So you don't have to put in no credit card, no delivery information.
03:53You one click, it's delivered to your home.
03:55And from there on, we'll add more products, more commerce products.
03:59And what are the roles that you see collectibles and merchandise
04:02and that element of the conversation playing in the eventual evolution more and more of the company?
04:08So our idea is to add in more and more merchants so we can personalize experiences.
04:12If you have access to more merchants, you may like trading cards.
04:15Somebody may like jerseys.
04:17Somebody may even like, we're moving on even to do travel shows and cooking shows.
04:22So the universe is limitless.
04:24And our idea would be to curate and get in customers what they want
04:28and give them the experiences that they want.
04:30So the possibilities are limitless because once you've done betting with dynamic pricing,
04:35other things in a lot of ways are easier to deliver for customers.
04:38And Sandy, it's obvious that you've made a lot of progress, you and the company, in South America.
04:43I wonder what expanded partnerships and new opportunities look like for you at the Team and TAP,
04:47even beyond that market.
04:49Absolutely. We are already working in the U.S.
04:51We hope to be launching here in fourth quarter.
04:54We hope it's a pretty big partner.
04:55They'll bring a lot of, again, customer delight to our fans.
04:59And we're also looking at international opportunities as well.
05:03We're really excited about this.
05:04And hopefully customers will like what we bring to them.
05:09So far, so good.
05:10Sounds like a lot of success.
05:11Sandy, thanks a lot for taking the time to join us.
05:12Great to have you.
05:13Thanks a lot.
05:14Appreciate it.
05:14Of course.
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