Outside The Boards™
The OTB™ Podcast is your passport to the captivating world of polo, where we aim to redefine preconceived notions and deliver an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at this remarkable sport. Our mission is to introduce you to the fascinating individuals, remarkable locales, and captivating stories that comprise the heart of polo, while shattering common stereotypes along the way.
Tackling pressing issues currently shaping the sport, we foster constructive dialogue and exchange of ideas, insights, solutions, and exemplary case studies. Our ultimate aim? To propel polo to new heights on the global stage.
Join us for candid conversations with polo's industry luminaries, dedicated enthusiasts, and the extraordinary individuals who infuse this sport with their passion and energy, making it an absolute joy to be a part of. The OTB™ Podcast: Your portal to a polo experience like no other.
Outside The Boards™
Alice Walsh & Rosanna Turk: Shaking Up Polo with LineUp
Ever wondered what happens when cutting-edge technology meets the tradition-steeped world of polo? This episode delivers the answer through an exhilarating conversation with Alice Walsh and Rosanna Turk, the dynamic duo behind Line Up Polo.
These two childhood rivals-turned-business partners share their remarkable journey from competing against each other in pony club tournaments to collaborating on a digital platform that's revolutionizing how polo is organized, played, and experienced. What began as Alice's computer science project has evolved into a comprehensive solution addressing the sport's desperate need for modernization.
The brilliance of Line Up Polo lies in its dual-sided approach. For club managers drowning in administrative chaos (described hilariously as "herding cats"), their platform streamlines tournament organization, team management, and fixture scheduling. Meanwhile, players and fans gain unprecedented access to live scoring, statistics, and match details through an intuitive app that makes polo more accessible than ever.
Most fascinating is how their data collection is challenging polo's status quo. In a sport where professional opportunities have traditionally depended on who you know, Line Up's performance analytics provide patrons with objective criteria for team selection. As Rosanna puts it, "Data doesn't have bias," potentially democratizing access to playing opportunities based on demonstrable skill rather than connections.
The conversation dives deep into the adrenaline-fueled nature of polo, with both founders confessing their love for the sport's unique combination of speed, skill, and bravery. Alice's self-described "ADHD brain" found its perfect match in polo's all-consuming intensity – perhaps explaining why so many executives and entrepreneurs are drawn to the game as their ultimate stress release.
Ready to experience polo's digital revolution? Download the Line Up Polo app to follow tournaments worldwide, or contact them through their website to explore how their premium analytics could transform your team's performance. The future of polo is here – and it's brilliantly data-driven.
About Hive₂O Hard Honey™
Hive₂O Hard Honey is a pioneering beverage company that brings the rich, balanced taste of honey to the forefront of the industry. With a focus on innovation, quality, and community, Hive₂O offers a range of hard honey and alcohol-free beverages designed to surprise and delight with every sip.
As a thank you for tuning into this episode of Outside The Boards Podcast, Hive₂O is offering listeners an exclusive online discount and free shipping on all four packs. Use code OTBPOLO24 in all caps at checkout. Visit hardhoney.com to explore products.
About Lineup Polo
Lineup Polo was built to revolutionize how polo is managed and experienced. With a mission to support the polo community and expand the sport’s reach, the platform digitizes processes and centralizes communication. Lineup Polo is committed to the game's future.
Available as a free app and web portal, Lineup Polo allows clubs to manage tournaments, automate leagues, payments, and memberships, building a new digital ecosystem for polo.
About Outside The Boards™
Founded after witnessing their first polo match in 2012, Outside The Boards™ seeks to share the sport’s beauty, intensity, and lifestyle while addressing industry fragmentation. Through best practices, insights, trends, and consulting, OTB™ helps stakeholders and brands unlock polo’s marketing potential and navigate the sport with clarity...
You are listening to the Outside the Boards podcast. I'm Daniel Leary. For most of my professional career, I have worked in mainstream sports for some of the world's leading sports organizations and properties and blue chip brands, helping to create award-winning omni-channel marketing campaigns, result-driven sales strategies and impactful brand building initiatives. But all that work doesn't compare to the fun, excitement and challenges I've been fortunate to experience working for the king of all sports, polo. For nearly a decade, I've put my heart and ambition into helping advance the sport of polo. I've made lifelong friendships, met some incredible people, traveled to memorable polo destinations and heard the craziest stories craziest stories. My goal is to share these people, places and stories with you and provide a unique behind-the-scenes perspective of the game that breaks all the common stereotypes, all while discussing key issues affecting the sport today and the constructive sharing of ideas, insights, solutions and best case studies for the purpose of advancing polo globally. Every week, I will have honest conversations with POLO industry leaders, enthusiasts and awe-inspiring people who make this sport great and fun to be around. I hope, through their knowledge and their unique perspectives, they will motivate and inspire you. Together, we will explore ways you can make small tweaks to boost your POLO business, whether you are a club, event, team or player. That will amount to big changes in revenue, participation, attendance and exposure. Saddle up. Welcome to Outside the Boards with me, daniel Leary. Hi everyone, daniel Leary here, welcome to Season 5 of the Outside the Boards podcast.
Speaker 1:On this episode of Outside the Boards, I'm excited to introduce you to two creative and forward-thinking women who are shaking up the polo scene in the best way possible Alice Walsh and Rosanna Turk, co-founders of Line Up Polo.
Speaker 1:With roots in the UK and a shared passion for the sport, alice and Rosanna built a powerful app and a club platform that's giving Polo a fresh digital voice. With the sleek, intuitive design and the user-friendly features, line Up Polo is centralizing everything from fixtures and teams to live scoring and player stats, making the sport accessible, inclusive and commercially viable. It's already being used at every level, from grassroots games to international high-gold tournaments. Alice and Rosanna both grew up immersed in equestrian life and found themselves drawn to the thrill of polo. We'll trace the journey from an idea sparked by frustration with outdated systems to building a tech solution that's now powering teams, tournaments and associations. You'll hear from how the founders balanced respect for Polo's tradition and what it really took to go from concept to product in a sport steeped in tradition and in need of modernization. So, without further ado, let's welcome Alice Walsh and Rosanna Turk of Lineup Polo Enjoy.
Speaker 2:Hey, we're Rosanna and Alice, the co-founders of Lineup Polo. Before this episode starts, we wanted to introduce you to the platform we've built for the sport we love. Lineup is where modern polo comes together. For club managers, there's a powerful web platform where you can create and publish tournaments, fixtures and teams, and that info instantly appears in the Lineup app, where players, fans and organisers can see everything in one place, from live scoring and team entry to player stats and schedules. We've made it easy to run and follow Polo, whether you're organising games or just turning up to watch. Lineup makes Polo more connected, accessible and future ready. Search for Lineup Polo on the app or play store to get started. Alice Walsh and Rosanna Torb how are you guys?
Speaker 3:doing across the pond.
Speaker 2:We're great, thank you.
Speaker 1:It's quite late in the evening, but the Friday evening it's dinner time over there.
Speaker 2:It's 15 year, 7 15 year time. We're early birds now. No, we don't tend to stay up too late these days well, you know the polo world.
Speaker 1:No, I mean if you're getting up and taking care of your ponies. It's 4 am, 5 am, wake up calls, that's for sure, exactly but, no, I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm thrilled to have you guys for the audience. Alice and Rosanna are the founders of Line Up Polo. I've been eager to guys have you on, or someone like yourself on, because I'm a data nerd and I love the fact that someone is taking the initiative and lead the conversation when it comes to applying data to the sport of polo. We are a long way off from making that happen in our world, as you guys probably know, or if you're probably like me at one point a few years ago, frustrated at the fact that we still do stuff with pen and paper. So, yeah, so, but you know we're going to get into Line Up Polo, its founding, its motivation, what made you guys start it? But, first and foremost, what I love to do with all my guests is really get to know Alice and Rosanna, how did you get into the game? Were you part of another equestrian discipline?
Speaker 1:It's always fascinating to learn how people got into this game. I didn't get into the game until my 30s, as I think a lot of people do, but at some point Polo or Equestrian did make an imprint at a younger time in someone's life. But, alice, I'll start with you. Tell us about how you got into this game. Well, first off, where are you guys from? So obviously you're 7 o'clock over there and it's 1 o'clock here, so everyone knows now you're in Europe.
Speaker 3:Yes, we are. I am originally from Kent, which is closest to Calgary, that's my closest club. We both began polo through the Pony Club. I was seven and Rosanna was 10. And we were actually bitter rivals until well. I think we first spoke when we were 20, until well, I think we first spoke when we were 20 because we were always put onto different teams, as you know, quite a competent girl, um.
Speaker 3:So for young England and everything else, we were just always playing against each other and then yeah, um, we both had red helmets, so there was a bit of rivalry there, but then we actually recognised that we could be good friends and then, at the age of 20, we became really, really close.
Speaker 1:That's great Go ahead, rosanna.
Speaker 2:So I started playing, I think when I was about eight. I do not have any polo in my family whatsoever. Alice is the same. Neither of us have anyone else in our family that plays and I loved horses, but I really couldn't be bothered with kind of finicky things that came along with doing dressage and inventing, and I just loved playing polo because it was so quick and fast and exciting and it was literally what I looked forward to all throughout the year. In the UK we have pony club tournaments which run in the school summer holidays and, uh, that was just my. The thing I most look forward to in the world was the summer so I could play pony club polo. And yeah, I think Alice and I both neither neither of us, as I said have polo in our family so we very much played pony club on one pony for as long as we could and eventually both persuaded our parents to get a polo pony. But yeah, we've come from a situation where there isn't much polo at all around us.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now did you get involved at seven as well, at a young age yeah, I started playing when I was eight, um, and literally have not stopped ever since when I was younger I did also, uh, enjoy.
Speaker 3:I grew up doing showing and a little bit of eventing, but I wasn't very good with all the eyes being on me in the show ring. I found it really nerve-wracking. My sister was much, much better, but I do love making horses pretty and turn out and all the rest of it, and my mom loves it too. But polo, yeah, she said when I first tried it. Apparently it was like love at first sight.
Speaker 1:She just couldn't couldn't get me off the polo ponies now, you said you had a sibling that also you rode with as well. Are they a polo player?
Speaker 3:no, she, she did eventing, but then after university, when we sold the her good eventer, she just didn't want to be with horses at all. So now, now she lives in Vancouver as an architect.
Speaker 1:Hey, all right. Okay, how about you, rosanna? Do you have any siblings as well? That ride.
Speaker 2:I have two brothers, one older, one younger, and my older brother is a doctor, but he does still ride a little bit, but not so much, and he did play polo for a while, but, um, eventually I think just other commitments took over. And then my younger brother did play for a little bit, but I think the mucking out just got too much for him, basically, um, and he decided that he he preferred other things, which was so fantastic for me because I got their polo ponies. So it worked out very well.
Speaker 1:But yeah, just me that plays now. Good deal. Now the Pony Club has come up I think a few times in some of my episodes. Can you tell us what is the Pony Club? It's not necessarily like a regular club that I think everyone would attribute to no, it's the most amazing institution institution, I think.
Speaker 2:In the uk. There's lots of different branches all around the country and you can join your local branch and then try out all sorts of equestrian disciplines for in a really affordable way. So it's a fantastic introduction to all of these different disciplines, like mounted games.
Speaker 2:Yeah show jumping eventing and it gives you also I think what's most important is a really close-knit group of local horsey friends, and that's been like the friends that I made in Ponydaw Polo still are my friends to this day and are a big reason why I carried on playing as well. So so it's a really fantastic institution to make horses relatively affordable for kids.
Speaker 1:That's great. I think you got to put that on a t-shirt, by the way, horsey friends.
Speaker 2:They're the best kind.
Speaker 1:They're the best kind. Yes, yeah, that's a meme right there for you. Wait till it happens. No, that's great. That's great. I want to say there's things like that that are similar here in the us, but no, that's fantastic. Around the pony club, it's something that I know in my history and working in the sport of polo when I was with the uspa. The pony club has come up multiple times. You know reflecting and building something like that here in the us, and you know so on and so forth. But you, you mentioned something I don't know if it was alice rosanna, persuading your parents to buy a pony. How did you manage to do that?
Speaker 2:I have a nine-year-old that loves to ride I think for me, and I don't know if it's the same for alice, but I think my mom especially was quite ambitious for me and she definitely was very willing to be encouraged by me in those situations. But I think that she could see how much I love the sport and that I wanted to continue it into my adult life and so I said to her, like if there's anything that you do in my life to support me, that you put some money towards, like please make it be this, because I just love it and I really think I want to do it as I get older.
Speaker 3:I had to take a different approach because there was this amazing little pony that hunted but also played polo and he was gorgeous, but he was a bit big for me at the time and too much of a horse, and I had to throw a tantrum for three days and I ruined mom says one of the best days of her life when my sister won a massive international show and I was there crying because I wanted this horse.
Speaker 3:I wasn't a spoiled brat, but that's, that's what I, what I had to go to oh, no right when we're trying to break down the stereotypes, we're a spoiled little girl begging for a pony alice's solution to to tell her was tantrums at the age of 18, my uh, my parents both said that they won't spend any money on polo just before I was going to off to university. So I had two little polo ponies that were, you know, I was double truckering every single weekend and having great fun on them, but um yeah. So since then my parents haven't funded anything with my polo well, you got to pay for college.
Speaker 1:Somehow, would you say, you two fit the quintessential stereotype of a little girl wanting a horse. You know, when you guys were seven and eight, did you have my Little Pony. Am I dating myself by saying that I don't know.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, my Little Pony. Yeah, I used to love that.
Speaker 1:You had little horses with flowing hair that you used to comb on I used to sing a song and then they'd turn into a unicorn nice, um, for me I was more like tomboyish.
Speaker 2:I would describe myself as so. The those kinds of things didn't particularly interest me, but I definitely was like the horsey girl at school. I think I got a prize for that once, actually. But, um, yeah, no, I definitely fitted into some of those stereotypes, that's for sure but you started off in some other equestrian discipline other than polo.
Speaker 1:First and foremost, like what drew you to that specific discipline. Can you pinpoint why polo was more exciting to you and interesting than eventing, dressage, jumping or anything like that? It's a hard question, I know it's.
Speaker 3:There are no other sports that are that fast and that physical but yet require so much skill, and it's in the fine details of the riding the ball skills you know, positioning your teammates but then also having to be quite brave and going really fast and crashing into people. There's no other sport that gets my adrenaline so high. Like when I don't play much, which has been the past few seasons I am literally shaking at the end of each chucker because I, my body's just not used to this much adrenaline and I play hockey throughout the winter to try and keep just a team sport going and it's nothing like polo, that's so true?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, for for me it's definitely the the team element and also I was just. I was really really rubbish at all of the other equestrian sports, polo was the only one that I was any good at. I think you do what you like, you do what you're good at and I think it's it's the same. It's it's so totally different because it's not about how you look and how necessarily precise or accurate you are in doing a 20 meter circle. It's just about how gutsy and brave you are and I I think I loved as well that you could take on the guys and people would underestimate you because you were a girl when you went onto the pitch and I found it really fun to try and kind of quash that stereotype. Yeah, I think it's just the adrenaline at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:Now, alice, you mentioned that you also played hockey, right? Yeah, Rosanna, did you play another sport too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I played pretty much everything at school. I was known at school. I always have some kind of broken bone, usually from playing sports, so I spent a lot of time on crutches and with various arms and plaster casts at school because I was playing sports so much. But, yeah, I think it's what I really really loved. But also polo wasn't really known about at school. Really loved um, but also polo wasn't really known about at school and it was, yeah, quite interesting because people have a perception of the sport. Trying to balance that sometimes I'd feel quite shy about saying that I played played the game because people perceive it in a certain way.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but I played a lot of sports that's interesting, and I always like to bring that up, because most of the time, someone usually does play another sport. In some cases it is sticking ball, whether it be lacrosse, hockey. You know, there is an element that I feel like I'm beginning to uncover in both of you is that you're both kind of adrenaline junkies in a way. Would you say that?
Speaker 2:I think that's why we run a startup. A hundred percent, yeah, yeah, skiing a startup a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, skiing and mostly people do like I. When I spoke with timmy jr and senior of duda family, you know we talked about like yeah, we're adrenaline, we have a bit of a screw loose to do what we do, and it's just like, yeah, why the heck do iron men people do what they do. They swim two and a half miles, run a marathon and then a hundred mile bike ride. That's stupid, that's nuts. So there's an element of crazy, I think, in all polo players, because I remember when I first got on my horse and it just took off straight to the ball, my gosh, that was an adrenaline rush and I was hooked easily Like this is way better than what I was taught previously.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A hundred percent For me. That adrenaline junkie side of me turned out to be ADHD, and the risk-taking and the adrenaline loving side of me is medically diagnosed for me. So yeah, I completely me and my psychologist concur with you on that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, but the ADHD thing is a good analogy. I mean, polo requires so much focus, energy and commitment to it. If you don't have that sport or something like that that requires all 100% of your attention, body and mind, you would be a space cadet. If you are in eventing or jumping, you probably would drift off, you know somewhere A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, polo was the only sport that really kept all of my focus and that I could concentrate on and loved and is exactly to say because it is the most fast paced and exciting sport out of any of them. I imagine, yeah, a lot of polo players are in the same boat as me on that one.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, a lot of polo players are in the same boat as me on that one. Oh yeah, well, sometimes people ask why are so many entrepreneurs, business executives and things like that involved in polo? And I always tell people this is my theory. My theory is they're so embedded with their business and what they're doing. Polo requires so much in all of you that it's a brick from thinking and the stress of running a business. It requires a hundred percent of you and to them that's their therapy a hundred yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the conclusion I've made, because I have my hobbies too, like I'm a big foodie, okay, and when I'm cooking for my family or what have you, it takes all of me to do it and I find that to be very therapeutic at the end of the day, even though sometimes it can be stressful at times but I no longer have to think about work because that occupies my time majority of the day and I need to get away from it and think about something else. So when I think of like guys, the US, mark Gansey, louis de Valence, rob Gennarvis, curtis Pilot, even Tim Gannon with Outback these are all major CEOs, executives and owners I get it now. I get it, totally get it.
Speaker 3:You have to be comfortable with that high level of stress and risk taking, and so your mind almost just adapts to that level, and that's why my boyfriend and Rosanna we went skiing and they said they hated skiing with me, because I just love being on the edge. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you went down the Black Diamond when everyone else is on green right.
Speaker 2:No, she skied off a cliff.
Speaker 1:Okay, ooh, moguls, let's go down that.
Speaker 2:It was terrifying. Even I was scared skiing with Alice on that one. The point about the business and polo going so well, I think it's so true. And also, we are so constantly accessible today with, like your iphone, everyone can always get hold of you, but when you're playing polo, they really can't, like you really cannot pick up the phone, you can't answer a text and it's a proper, like you say, it's a really very well defined break and it's something completely different for your brain to do so. I totally, totally agree. It is just a really expensive form of therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and you raise a good point because the polo fields that I know of here in Illinois. You won't get that much cell reception at some of these locations, that's for sure. But going back to your polo careers now, are you guys still affiliated with the Poli Club or are you guys now associated with one club or another out in the UK or no?
Speaker 3:No, so our platform. It can be used anywhere in the world. We're not associated with the Pony Club at all, although we would love to be able to sponsor them in the future, but we are working with the governing body, the HPA, but we can't tell you any of the details yet did you mean um playing wise?
Speaker 1:I meant playing wise, but I wanted to I was going to the next thing is to dive into lineup, but yeah, playing wise, you know, are you affiliated with any pacific club, or is it still the pony club?
Speaker 2:rosanna is, but not me okay so, yeah, I've carried on playing through uni. So there was there's also in the uk, I think it's the same in the us. There's really great university clubs and then once I left, I joined a couple of different clubs, so science, esther and both long doll. I've been members of all of them, edgeworth all of the clubs in Gloucestershire basically and yeah, just played a lot of club polo as much as I can. I think it's great as well. In the UK there's a really good ladies circuit, so I've been able to travel to a lot of different clubs and play on some of the most amazing fields on the ladies circuit, which I've loved.
Speaker 1:Now, what universities did you guys go to?
Speaker 2:I went to Warwick it's middle england, isn't it, alice? Yes, yeah. And then I went to kingston university, which is in london, where I studied design, which is with a load of like, really arty people, and I had really only ever existed in the countryside before, so it was quite a culture shock for me, but I went. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Alice, what did you study?
Speaker 3:So after school I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I wanted to play polo. So I looked up the degree that earned the most money and that was computer science. So I went and did that. I did it with a bit of business on the side as well that's a fantastic strategy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I probably should have done that when I went into school it was so smart yeah, well wait, who was alice or rosanna, who said they had the architect in the family? Me, yeah, my sister I went to school for architecture, beginning with and then changing to business.
Speaker 1:My sophomore year yeah, that's so cool I have a knack for it, still love it. I go on the chicago architecture tour every single year because it never gets old. That is so cool. So all right, now let's take a spin here and talk about lineup poll, because I'm a big fan of this. I know others have attempted it. You have some competition out there. A little bit too. I could be wrong, but the articles that I've read about you even how your logo came up, I thought was very inventive, and I'm curious I want to really pull back the curtain is how did this all come about? Were you at a coffee shop? Were you at a pub? Did the idea come up on a cocktail napkin? Frankly, I love business and startups, so there's always a light bulb that went off somewhere, and I'm curious to where yours went, because it sounds as though this idea happened a number of years ago. Am I right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I actually first came up with it when I was 16 as a computer science project. I then did it for my IB computer science project and then as my dissertation at university and I was like I really really need to get this going university. And I was like I really really need to get this going, um, but I was just struggling by myself, um, and I needed someone else to bounce ideas off and do all the designs part. And that was when Rosanna and I became close friends. So I asked her if she wanted to join me and I sent her my 96 page dissertation and she printed it out and was like yes, hell yes. And at the time it was called Mallet Manager with a terrible logo. So the name and the logo are completely down to Rosanna.
Speaker 1:Mallet Manager, it's catchy. I get where you're going with it. I'd be interested to see what the logo is.
Speaker 3:Envision like McDonald's, but with polo sticks.
Speaker 1:The bamboo arches. Is that what Exactly? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, catchy yeah. And from my side I had been playing kind of semi-professionally after I left university. I was traveling a lot with it but not making enough money for it to be a career that I could go into. And I began working for various polo filming companies, which I really, really loved and got a lot of experience in terms of the commercialization and that side of the sport, and I got to travel a lot with it, which was great. But yeah, alice asked me and I literally had no idea what it would entail, but I liked the sound of it and we were both 22 at the time, I think, and completely naive to what it meant to set up a business or what we could be getting ourselves into essentially. But I think that actually really worked in our favor. I think we'd have been very overwhelmed if we knew, knew what would actually happen.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I, we dived in together and haven't looked back so when was the year that you kind of hit your stride with kind of bringing this out, or how long did it take to you guys to kind of build a beta product?
Speaker 3:so we started uh, chatting the winter of 2020, 2021, um, and then we had the app was live july in 2021, but then it really only started taking off in 2023. And last season was incredible for us we had 20 percent of the high goal players in the queen's cup on the platform yeah, there's so much in that time process from 2021 to 2023, because we we started with literally nothing, neither alice or I.
Speaker 2:Alice is more technical, but it wasn't suitable for her to do all of the coding, so we had to work out how to get developers. We had to raise money to build the platform, which costs a lot to begin with. Yeah, our brand and identity set up, and we had not done any of this before. We really did not have any experience, but, yeah, it was a massive, massive learning curve constantly and it's always surprised me and amazed me how people are so willing to help. I think people really enjoy getting involved in this kind of thing, but so many people along the way have just given us their free time, essentially, and helped us, and we would not have got where we are without them.
Speaker 1:Is the main cornerstone of Line Up Polo a means of scoring a game. Up polo a means of scoring a game. Was that kind of how it first started, or was it like tournament?
Speaker 3:management kind of thing, yeah. So when we were brainstorming we realized that we wanted to get polo out to a wider audience and with the results and players and everything. But we recognized that the crux of that was getting accurate data and with clubs, lots of clubs don't even have a website, so there was no chance of just them sending in the data and then you know there's human error and all the rest of it and so that's why we began with a tool for the club managers themselves, because also we know so many club managers and it is an absolute pain in the ass sometimes to organize tournaments.
Speaker 3:So we just wanted to help them and also the players. So that's where it sort of stemmed from.
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Speaker 2:I think a lot of it is that they always say it's like herding cats trying to get polo players to tell them when they can play. I think that is a really big thing is making sure that tournaments are organised correctly. I think as well. Lots of times polo clubs are they struggle in terms of their admin, that they need to do, and it means that they can't focus on attracting new members or making sure current members have a great time, and so we wanted to help that out. There's things like taking payments for entry fees, actually scheduling the tournaments, publishing the tournaments to their website or anywhere else.
Speaker 3:all those kinds of things they found quite tricky in general yeah, because often they're they're just ex-polo players who love the sport so much and they don't necessarily have any training or experience in running a business like a polo club.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I got the same thing as in the world of marketing and corporate partnerships. It's like the people that I'm dealing with are not educated in this particular area so they might have a different view or want to have a different conversation about, let's say, sponsorship and driving in that extra revenue. For the most part, not everyone is like El Dorado or National Polo Center that have skilled people doing it. No, I 100% agree. So this was really a tournament management or club management tool.
Speaker 1:Precisely management or club management tool. Precisely at what point did it kind of roll out into being a means to score and track the progress of games?
Speaker 3:this was actually the brainchild of our software developer from the start, and he one summer I think it was 2023, he just really pushed for it and built this prototype so we would take our laptops to the field and live score. And it just really took off and we recognized that we were getting a lot of traffic to the app to view these timelines.
Speaker 2:Yeah, shout out to Barnaby. He's really created one of our most popular features, for sure.
Speaker 1:Now, is it easy to do that, like if you're at a game with your laptops and you're scoring it? Is it intuitive enough for someone like me to go out and do it at my own club, or no?
Speaker 2:Completely. Yeah, so we've now built out. We obviously started with the prototype that we used internally, but now this is a feature that clubs use. So when clubs have signed up themselves, they can access this live scoring for their own club and it's super easy. It's just on their phone and you can just get whoever usually writes down your match sheet to do it instead of that. So it's just a digital record of the game. But the benefit is that anyone who's using the app can see in real time what's happening in the game publicly. So it's super handy for helping fans and any player with their mum or dad. They can keep up to date in real time with what's happening in the match. But, yeah, for the club manager or scorer, it's super intuitive for them to use.
Speaker 3:It's also led on to Line Up Premium, which is coming out this season, because we recognize that we've collected all of this data and it can be really powerful so we can produce statistics for players, teams, clubs, everyone, and it can be really really interesting.
Speaker 1:Now has this like in Europe? Has it been adopted enough where it can replace the typical polo score sheet, or do you do someone who technically had to still fill that out?
Speaker 3:after all this ease and intuitiveness, we produced beautiful designs of how it could be inputted via an ipad, but the umpires over here have said that they have one split second to write down a goal in the correct box. They are not going to have time to click the right buttons and all the rest of it, because it's often just the third man that inputs that data. So it's still a way to go there.
Speaker 1:My head is in my hands right now, like just shaking my head.
Speaker 1:Are you serious For anyone who's listening right now? We've kind of touched on a bit of an embarrassing moment about polo and that's the fact that everything still is done by pencil and paper, and it's always frustrated with me just looking at people's kitchen scratches and then having to scan it and send it to the uspa, you know, as part of a certified tournament. You know no data can really be extracted by it or visualized in real time when you look at it in comparison to other sports. Data is king, content is king these days and yeah, so, yeah, so it's. It's frustrating to hear that because it's like that's like my gosh. Can we move on?
Speaker 3:we're only 20 years behind football I feel like it's probably longer yeah, yeah, it could be.
Speaker 2:It's a really interesting point for me. I see it as the third man and umpires. They have to do such a complicated, tricky job and take in so much information, so there is, of course, like an element of getting people up to the time and comfortable using technology, but it does also come down to building them a system that is intuitive enough for them to use and for them to feel comfortable using. We've had brilliant conversations with umpires and they are up for getting the sport to be more modernized and technical and they want to be a part of that, and I think we're getting much closer to a point where we can get that tech to them and they they are receptive.
Speaker 3:It's different to other sports, because sports like football or soccer you call it sorry they have massive data companies whose specific job is just to track the ball, track each player, and they can collect that sort of data, Whereas if you're asking a third man, a referee or an umpire to input, that, it's kind of detached from their job.
Speaker 2:if you see what I mean.
Speaker 1:So we need to generate enough interest for other companies like ourselves to come in and just focus on that data collection side of it yeah, there's a behemoth that's actually out in europe at sport uh, radar, I think, their headquarter out there, which is, um, they are heavily involved in, you know, the television aspect and collecting data and I also know they're they're also involved in sports betting and their that is used to determine that those outcomes and what have you. But no, you raise a really good point and I just I pray that we kind of kind of push and turn over a leaf and get Polo into the 21st century. When it comes to this stuff, you know, and since you guys have rolled this out, is your business primarily in the UK right now or have you filtered over into other countries, in Argentina and the US?
Speaker 2:This is a really interesting point. So we're definitely primarily in the uk and that's obviously because all of our contacts and the people we know are in the uk. When we really want to expand out, the first country we want to go to is america, and we've had some great chats with clubs actually in america, I think, because you guys are really technically savvy as well, which helps, helps a lot. But yeah, I think the end goal would be obviously worldwide domination. Uh, all games, all polo, that is all online. That is the whole point. Um, eventually we'll get there. But yeah, it's definitely trickier going to argentina, I there's is this just a slightly different culture? And yeah, I think we, we will, we'll get there eventually yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker 1:Places like America, what have you are data savvy people, use of technology, second screens and so on and so forth. A hundred percent. And not to mention, it's happened a while ago, even when I was trying to push concepts like this as well. People in the polo world would tell me you know, hey, dan, don't wait a while for anyone else, just don't. Just do it. You do it right and it becomes success. Then people will be knocking at your door.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, if I can provide words of wisdom, especially getting into the US, just do it. Don't wait on the USPA, don't wait on anyone else, just do it. Ride that wave essentially and, like you said, focus on world domination. I'm wondering, like do the data that you collect, especially like game day data, what data can you collect from a game in real time that can be quantified and filtered and outspit something pretty amazing other than the score?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, we've got some pretty cool charts at the moment. This is my absolute love. I love playing around with the charts and everything. When they're most likely to foul, when they're most likely to score or concede goals, and often, with the successful high goal teams in Argentina, they never foul at the start of the chocker and then they begin to foul but then they score all the goals towards the end of the chocker and end of the game and when they just push right ahead. But we can do it per team, per player. So their win percentage, their best weeks throughout the seasons, the favourite pitch all sorts.
Speaker 2:My favourite use of it is that in polo you obviously have the patron and professional player dynamic. That seems to be quite often based on players relationships or players ability to charm the patron into playing with them in a tournament and it's very much a who you know basis for those jobs. But we can provide patrons with really accurate data on their professional players performance which can help them pick professionals based on their results as opposed to who they know. So we've had, yeah, a lot of success with patrons really being very interested in that data alongside team coaches, so it helps a lot in making those decisions about team selection and also we can dive into the positions that the players are are in, like how often they score with that team setup and that sort of thing no, I mean, that's valuable data.
Speaker 1:I always wonder that would something like this ultimately be valuable to a team, considering how people choose, select players, find players and so on and so forth, like the ability to break it down no different than what's his face? I can't remember from money ball, you know, in determining how you're going to select your players and you realize you know, hey, so-and-so so good, he can hit the ball Fantastic, you know he's the highest rank or what have you. But Joe Schmo from this corner of the world can do as good. The whole idea of getting on base sort of thing, I think is great and I think that would disrupt the polo world in the way that it subjectively does it now. And the data that you've collected has it been considered at all in terms of justifying someone's handicap? Have you been able to find data that would say, hey, this is how a seven-goaler plays? Those types of comparisons, is that something?
Speaker 2:that you've collected enough or is something in the future? Such an interesting question. I think last year was the first year we began to have enough data to be confident in that kind of thing. Especially in the UK we have the Victor Le Dorm series, which is the HPA's main tournaments that they run through the season, and all of those were on line up. I think we can start to look at things like win rates and win percentages with certain teams and per club, like win rates and win percentages with certain teams and per club, and I think that data is really useful for handicapping. If you have a three-goaler and they've won 95% of their matches, it's really obvious that they need to go up and handicap. But at the moment, as you say, it's still completely subjective, so it hasn't been used so far for the handicapping, but I think it absolutely should be yeah, it's quite, it's quite a sensitive subject so we haven't just gone in all guns blazing like this is what the data can show.
Speaker 3:But even just having a record of the matches that a player's played and if they are losing is it down to the teams that they've been put in and their individual performance? Have they been playing up to their handicap? So just having it on record is a step in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Has there been any data that you've collected that has kind of gave you a bit of a wow factor, like I don't know where to start, let alone which data point to tie to specifically. But I would be curious as to know, like wow, you know, that's quite impressive for a particular player or team or tournament or what have you. I would be curious if anything has surprised you on anything that you collected.
Speaker 2:I think Alice will have more to say on this, but for me there's obviously the top players and you perceive them as being really great players, but then you look at the data and they are just so far ahead of anyone else. There's like the top maybe 10 players and just such a huge gulf to the rest of the polo population. In almost every metric in terms of like their win rates, how successful they are with penalties, everything. They are just so far ahead of the rest of the pack.
Speaker 3:It's fascinating to see quite how big a gulf there is there yeah, I mean I would love to share my screen right now and show you these charts. Not very good for a podcast, but there's been. There's been some teams which we've got a lot of data from from last year. So R&R, based in Gloucestershire by Rosanna, and they've really performed well this season and it I've known about them. But to see their performance on a computer you can just relate to them so much more and you just feel like you're involved in their success.
Speaker 1:I think we should probably get together and probably put like a PDF document ultimately to share, to people to better take a look at this, but that's pretty neat. One thing I'm actually curious at all do you actually actually, let's say, track you know whether a player is age, are they male or female, that sort of thing, and any sort of data that could be attributed to those types of demographics? Have you not gotten that far yet?
Speaker 3:we don't at the moment because that is classed as sensitive information. We've just got first name, last name, handicap, but when you sign up to the app we do get gender, not age yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That would be so interesting to see people's gradual decline, or maybe just incredibly depressed, I don't know, not necessarily.
Speaker 3:Oh, you just pissed off a lot of people. I think kona is one of the only sports that you are better at until you're yeah, but you hit 40 years old and there's just a slow decline and just their progress you know, I genuinely peaked when I was maybe 19.
Speaker 2:My phone upgrade had never been as good as it was when I was 19. So, that rings true, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:But that would be very interesting data overall, I think For guys who grew up watching Mythbusters and stuff like that. There is an audience for this and to draw on this with other sports, we bring up the gender and age thing. My boss with Oak Brook Polo. He played until he was 85 years old, or 80 years old, that's incredible. The gentleman that owned the Milwaukee Polo Club played until he was 90. Now, granted, yes, there was a gradual decline or demise, no matter how you described it. There is, but it's still pretty impressive Nonetheless.
Speaker 2:I mean the other.
Speaker 1:Thing and not to mention, like even you see a lot of times, men playing with women and women playing with men and can rise to the occasion, can ride as hard, play as talented.
Speaker 2:Hope ariano is constantly talked about all the time here in the us as someone can easily be thrown on a men's team and kick ass, you know yeah I think that's where data is super interesting, because it doesn't have bias, and that means that you can truly put any bias that you have to the side and actually pick the best player. I think that's what excites alice and I.
Speaker 3:So much about it is that we really hope in the end it helps to democratize places in polo teams, because people will be able to pick based on results and there was a beautiful demonstration with Hazel, who was picked to play in the Queen's Cup for Black Bears, and she did so so well and you can actually see her performance compared to other two goalers who are men in the same tournament.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Was she picked for the Gold Cup as well? Where is that? She might be both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah for both of them would you guys ever get into other scientific ways of tracking the game, not just from like game scoring and things like that. But let's say, would you be able to put sensors in the ball on players on horses to track what is the distance that an average polo pony will run?
Speaker 3:we would absolutely love to, and it's one of the things. We've built this as sort of a platform for these exciting technologies. They can't really be put in place without the infrastructure that we've got. But one of our friends who works for PoloCam, who co-owns it, he's tried to put the tracker in a polo ball and it is extremely difficult, extremely difficult. But we would love to be able to have trackers and heart rate monitors on the players and also on the horses. There's so much scope in those areas we would love to be able to.
Speaker 1:We always bring up random data all the time. Like the polo ball can be hit at 110 miles per hour, which is so that any professional baseball player can throw. Is that true?
Speaker 3:You know, let's do it Like someone actually go out there and put a radar's, do it like I don't know someone actually go out there and put a radar gun on it?
Speaker 1:I don't know. And on top of that, like you, when you see the the bamboo mallet bend the way it does, like there is a the poster shot from netflix with proto cambiasso doing a backhand under the neck swing and managed to get that thing to bend the way he does how much torque does it take to bend something like that? And the impact of a ball to be hit at 300 yards. I'm just bewildered by some of the facts and it's just like how did someone uncover this data point? I would love to know that, because it's like all all right, this is how hard Barry Bonds could hit a baseball out of the park. This is how hard you can hit a polo mallet. And they're they're equivalent.
Speaker 1:Because I constantly, in my dialogue with the world of non polo people in mainstream sports, I constantly say like I would put guys like Adolfo his son right next to professional athletes in baseball or hockey or whatever it might be in a day. What I've seen on the field and what can be done it is defies physics sometimes and it's one of those things where you watch those guys. They get the ball on their mallet and they bounce it all the way while running 30 miles per hour on a horse, and then knock it in. I always use that example and I always talk about that iconic commercial that Nike did with Tiger Woods, when all he's doing is standing and and hitting the golf ball on the edge of his wedge. All right, and I think to myself what's these guys do? What they do at the end of their mallet.
Speaker 1:And there's no flat surface at the end of a polo mallet. That's all cylinder. That right. There is justification enough. Just like these guys are so talented, their hand-eye coordination blows anyone out of the water. I find tracking things like that scientific data around things would be incredible. Heck, I would love to do an x-ray. Are polo players?
Speaker 2:more made of rubber and cartilage or than bone. Yeah, you're so right about that. I always remember my mom used to be quite hard on me when I was playing. I must have been about 15. And I said, ok, you go and try. And she went and had a lesson and she came to me afterwards and she said I'm so sorry, I will never shout at you again for your poor performance because that sport is so hard. But, yeah, you're, you're completely right. It would be fascinating. I can attest having been on the end of a few protocols hit really hard. They are hit very hard. I can't say exactly how hard, but, um, yeah, it'd be really interesting to know that.
Speaker 1:And I think those kinds of bits of data are really good for engaging new fans as well, because it's something they can relate to yeah, I mean, look at the end of the day, let's go out one day, let's bring polo with us, let's bring a camera that can do 30,000 frames a second and just do a Mythbusters version of Polo. And, by the way, do you even know what I'm talking about when I say Mythbusters, or is that just a US TV show?
Speaker 1:No, no, yeah, we understand, but you know what I'm talking about the Science of sport. I actually think that used to be a show like on ESPN or something. I just think that would be so incredible to do.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think what you guys are doing you have the nuts and bolts of starting something that has so many legs to it that just continue down that path, Because I think, at the end of the day, data and drawing on comparison with other sports that people are used to to justify why our game is not a bunch of dudes on horseback playing croquet. It's a real game, it's a real sport. It's dangerous as all hell and you know the whole notion of my dad can be of your dad, sort of thing.
Speaker 1:I love and I apologize, I'm getting excited about this just because I love these aspects of the game. I really do. When I was 10 years old I used to fill out scorecards at baseball games, kind of thing. So this is an exciting path forward and I continue to encourage what you're doing and would love to help out in any sort of way to get that message across and to uncover and find data to make polo that much more interesting. You know, I remember, even just on the championship side, I remember I was able to uncover something strange about the University of Kentucky or UConn's polo team. You know, women's polo team won as many or more national championships than the women's basketball or men's basketball team combined, or something like that. And it blew up Like what. We had this thing in our backyard that we never knew about.
Speaker 1:But, those types of things I think are really, really cool to do. You know what's next steps for Line Up Polo From a data and expanding the product? What do you see as the future of Lineup?
Speaker 2:I was going to say it's Tiger Woods on horseback.
Speaker 3:It is quite a hard balance for us because, as you said, there is so much scope to our work and we're constantly having to tell each other to drop that new shiny thing because we've got the rest of the business to run. I mean for us focusing on the US and chucker generators and our availability scheduler. That's in the near term. In the longer term, the data side of it, 100%. The limiting factor for Polo, I think, is the size of the pitch, so we are going to have to try and find ways around that. But more live scoring, more in-depth statistics, player profiles and then, like you said, supporting data for handicaps, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most definitely. Well, guys, I can't thank you enough for for taking the time to talk about this. We're really exciting and I hope you know we can work together at some point, because the data that you collect, I would love to share that to the world, especially when you can draw it on comparison to other sports and things like that. I just want to drop people's jaw at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:And this is the way to do it. So I thank you very much for taking the time to join me in talking about lineup polo, which is transforming the game and bringing it to mainstream again, because we're so embarrassed by the fact that we have to sharpen our pencils every single time we need to score. So I applaud you guys, any parting words that you want to share with your audience at all. I mean, where can they get the product? Can people Joe Small can access it download it to watch and see these games in real time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. Yeah, search, Line Up Polo in the App Store and you'll be able to download and sign up. It's free for any user to download and sign up and you'll be able to download and sign up. It's free for any user to download and sign up and you'll be able to see all of the polo all around the world live stream links, pictures. It just makes it super easy for you to watch and enjoy the sport. And then our website, learnitpolocom you can get in touch with us. So if you're a team that is interested in statistics, a coach, a player who wants to find out more about what we can do for you, get in touch with us. So if you're a team that is interested in statistics, a coach, a player who wants to find out more about what we can do for you, get in contact with us through our website and we'll be more than happy to help now, what also is the difference between this and lineup polo, vip or premium?
Speaker 2:yeah, so we have the app, which is free for anyone to use, and that just is a way to find out all of the information about games. And then we will be launching Line Up Premium, probably towards the end of 2025. And this allows for players, coaches and teams to get a lot more statistics about their performance, so we can come and live score at games, and that enables us to get a whole host more statistics about your team or players specifically. So, yeah, we we are starting to work with teams now on that anyway, and so, if that is something of interest, get in touch with us and we can make it happen is there any major tournaments and things that everyone should be knowledgeable about that you guys are covering in the near future?
Speaker 2:the cv whitney. Yes, that's very true. Cv whitney will be doing a lot, a lot with that cv whitney yeah, and then in the uk we've got the arena gold cup coming up um, which is the highlight of the arena calendar in england, and it's always both a great tournament and a great day out at the barkshire polo club.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, we'll be definitely heading there we're aiming to get on all polo 16 goal and above. We can't promise everything, but internationally that's what we're trying. So we will be live scoring a lot of the us games and we've recently covered the women's open out there as a resource to coaches, patrons, clubs and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:The the data that you yourself and your company alone is incredibly valuable, so so I pray that you use it for the best. Thank you, guys. Again so much for taking the time. I really enjoyed our conversation. I'm sure we'll be talking again soon as more stuff is uncovered. I know we could probably have a conversation alone about handicaps and that whole debacle. So again, thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate you coming on. Enjoy the rest of your evening. It's Friday. Hope you guys have great evening plans, but thank you.
Speaker 3:And thank you for spreading the word of Polo. Your podcast is doing a great job.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, we really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:It's been such fun.
Speaker 1:Thank you in 2012, the founders of outside the boards witnessed their first polo match and were stunned by the sport's beauty and brutality. Few sports, if any, have these combined qualities. The sport's grace, intensity and warlike imagery create a shock and awe viewing experience like none other. Combine this with the sport's party-like atmosphere and lifestyle and you have a recipe for success. Today, the sport has yet to witness its full potential. The industry is fragmented, riddled with politics and inexperienced. Outside the Board was purposely designed to change all that and bring clarity to the sport by introducing best practices, insights, trends and consulting services to industry stakeholders and interested brands so that they can reach their marketing potential and better navigate the sport. Whether you're a club seeking custom sponsorship and marketing solutions or simply looking for strategic advice, we encourage you to contact us today or subscribe to gain access to industry insights. Visit us at OutsideTheBoardscom or to learn more, or email us at info at OutsideTheBoardscom. Let's change the game, and that's a wrap for today's episode. Our heartfelt thanks to our season sponsor, hive 2.0, for helping bring outside the boards to life.
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