00:00How did this deal come about? Did they approach you? Did you approach them?
00:04Well, thanks first for having me on. We've been following the prediction markets for quite some time.
00:10And in our efforts in that area, certainly we're very interested with Calci and their growth and what they were doing in the United States
00:19and the opportunity that we saw to partner with predictive markets to help grow the sport, grow engagement with our sport.
00:26Polymarket in September became federally regulated by the CFTC as well.
00:34And knowing that those two were going to be the major players we felt in the marketplace,
00:40we tried to strike deals with both of them, which is often difficult.
00:44But we were able to succeed two great partners and couldn't be happier to have both of them.
00:49And what we think this does for the NHL and growing engagement,
00:52but also allows us to participate with those two companies in helping build what markets they're going to use
01:00and make sure that the NHL is part of that as opposed to not being part of it, which is really important.
01:07Keith, there are still questions about whether prediction markets are just another form of sports gambling.
01:11And there are legal challenges from state regulators that are pending.
01:15Did any of that give you pause?
01:18Well, certainly we evaluate in all of our partnerships what might be going on in the environment,
01:24understanding that there are regulatory challenges and things like that.
01:28You know, we come back to the fact that at this point in time, it is federally regulated by the CFTC.
01:34And that was really the barometer for which we were proceeding with these partnerships.
01:41The integrity, the integrity monitoring services that they use, all of the checks and balances.
01:47We saw this as an opportunity, again, for the NHL to partner with these two companies who, again, are federally regulated by the CFTC.
01:56Some other leagues have been more circumspect.
01:58The MLB wrote to the CFTC asking for an integrity framework that would involve data sharing, more visibility, among other things.
02:06Is data sharing and visibility into potential threats something that the NHL has negotiated with CalShane Polymarket?
02:14Absolutely.
02:15Not only is integrity paramount to what we're doing, it's also paramount to our partners.
02:22Part of that is providing authentic data.
02:26It's authentic using our IP.
02:28And that's why we feel it's much more important to be part of this regulated market than not to be.
02:35It allows us to determine with our partners what prediction markets we want them to provide to consumers.
02:42The other part is we're both very, you know, looking at using integrity monitoring services to make sure that there are no issues in that area as well.
02:53And from the standpoint of, you know, what we are trying to accomplish, you know, social responsibility in how we look at player protection, all of that is part of our agreements with CalShane Polymarket to make sure that we are doing the right thing for consumers.
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