ERIC HORSTMAN – FOUNDER & PRESIDENT OF THE FLYIN’ TO THE HOOP HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL INVITATIONAL – EPISODE 710

Website – https://flyintothehoop.com/

Email – eric@flyintothehoop.com

Twitter – @flyintothehoop

Eric Horstman is the founder of the Flyin’ to the Hoop High School Basketball Invitational in Dayton, Ohio. The inaugural year for the event was 2003. The event is currently ranked as the #2 Basketball Showcase for high school basketball nationwide per CBS Sports / MaxPreps. 20,000+ fans, college coaches and media attend the event each year which annually pumps over $1.9M into the local Dayton economy. 87 alumni of the event have been drafted into the NBA (or NFL).

In March of 2020, the first TOP GUN Showcase was held at Vandalia Butler HS. This event is a sister event of the nationally ranked Flyin’ to the Hoop Invitational that involves national powerhouse prep teams at the high school level in a 2-day showcase of games for the public.

In 2002, Eric founded Sports Image®. Sports Image® is a sports marketing company targeting school athletic departments and other grassroots organizations across the country to help them acquire new equipment for free and much-needed revenue for their programs. Currently, Sports Image® has helped by donating over $16M in equipment and $2,500,000 in revenue to schools in states nationwide.

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Grab your notebook as you listen to this episode with Eric Horstman, the founder of the Flyin’ to the Hoop High School Basketball Invitational in Dayton, Ohio.

What We Discuss with Eric Horstman

• How a baseball guy ended up running a basketball tournament
• Being inspired to start Flyin to the Hoop after attending Slam Dunk to the Beach
• Leaving his career in engineering to start a sports marketing firm
• “I made sure that if I said it or I promised it, it happened.”
• “I did whatever it took to make sure that the product on the floor, in the atmosphere around the facility was first class, regardless of the turmoil or craziness behind the scenes.”
• His sales pitch to teams in the early years
• The role John Stovall plays in selecting teams’
• Putting together the right types of matchups
• The four #1 picks that have played at Flyin to the Hoop – Anthony Davis, Anthony Bennett, Andrew Wiggins, and Deandre Ayton
• The most memorable games for him at Flyin to the Hoop
• The Trent Arena in Dayton and why it’s such a great facility for Flyin to the Hoop
• Why he uses a monthly checklist to keep on top of required tasks
• The three busiest weeks for him as the event coordinator
• Hoping for good weather in Dayton in January
• Helping kids play on a national stage and pumping money into the local Dayton economy
• Stories of college coaches attending Flyin to the Hoop
• Attracting sponsors
• Planning for a similar potential event in Atlanta
• The best ways to buy tickets for Flyin to the Hoop
• How coaches can apply to have their team be a part of Flyin to the Hoop

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THANKS, ERIC HORSTMAN

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TRANSCRIPT FOR ERIC HORSTMAN – FOUNDER & PRESIDENT OF THE FLYIN’ TO THE HOOP HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL INVITATIONAL – EPISODE 710

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle today. But I am pleased to be joined by the founder and president of Flyin to the Hoop, Eric Horstman. Eric, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:11] Eric Horstman: Hey, I appreciate being here, Mike. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:15] Mike Klinzing: Excited to have you on.  Looking forward to learning more about what you’ve been able to accomplish over the last 20 years with Flyin to the Hoop, an unbelievable event. The people that you’ve had come through there in terms of players and coaches and teams, I think people that are listening out there are going to really enjoy some of the conversation that we have tonight.

Let’s start by going back in time to when you were younger. Just tell us a little bit about your athletic background and sort of how that eventually plays into what you end up doing.

[00:00:42] Eric Horstman: Well, the funny thing that a lot of people want to ask is where I played college basketball or anything like that.

And none of that is the case because I’m actually a baseball player putting on a basketball tournament. So played baseball my whole life. Still wanted to play baseball into my twenties and what have you. So we’re doing some of the Roy Hobbs leagues in the adult leagues. And I figured out long ago when I decided to get into the sports marketing event management field that putting a baseball tournament or a baseball event on is a little bit tougher, getting fans in the stands that football and basketball is where it’s at.

And it kind of led me about 20 years ago, some things in the past. Took a couple of trips out to Delaware to see my nephew play at a high school event in Lewis, Delaware called the Slam Dunk to the Beach run by Bobby Jacobs. That could be an entire podcast in and of itself with that character.

But after a couple of years of going out and watching that event, I could not believe how they were hanging from the rafters in a little gym in Lewis, Delaware, where he was bringing in some of the top talent and some of the top high school teams from around the country. He and I became friends and he said, Wow, you’re from the Dayton, Ohio area, which is rabid for basketball.

He goes, We ought to try to put an event on in Dayton, Ohio. And that is how the idea was born for Flyin to the Hoop. He helped me with it the first couple of years. We parted ways after that, but I continued the tradition on and now it’s insane for me to even think that this January over Martin Luther King weekend is going to be our 20th anniversary of this year.

The Beacon Orthopedics Flyin to the Hoop. That time goes fast, doesn’t it? It’s unbelievable.  I tell people first couple of years I thought it was going to be a hobby. I thought it was going to be neat to put it on for the city, for the kids and what have you, and it’s turned into a, a monster, but in a good way.

[00:02:49] Mike Klinzing: All right, before we jump into how that first year looked and just getting it going, getting it all started. Tell me a little bit about your transition into the sports business world from what you were doing previously. Cause I know, yeah, you’re playing baseball and you’re still trying to stay involved in sports in that way, but at one point you had a different career than what you’re doing now.

So just talk a little bit about the sort of the where, why, how of transitioning from a quote unquote regular job and getting into the sports world.

[00:03:15] Eric Horstman: Right. Well started out I was at college at Ohio Northern University up in the big metropolitan of Ada, Ohio , and was studying to be a mechanical engineer.

Always thought I wanted to be an engineer a little bit of the Ocd habits and traits in me. So through college I ended up getting a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering jumping on with the Department of Energy after graduation, starting down here as a project manager slash engineer for the Department of Energy at the EG and G Mound facility.

They then came at me and said, Hey, we’ll pay for you to go back if you want to get your Masters in environmental Engineering. So I figured, what the heck you’re paying for it. I ended up getting a master’s in environmental engineering. So here I am with two engineering degrees, working for the government making good money, doing my thing in the early twenties, but I always wanted to.

Marrying my passion of sports with my entrepreneurial spirit. And I figured before I got married, before I had kids, if I was ever going to jump ship and try my own thing, it ought to be now. So I took those two engineering degrees and hung them on the wall and decided to do a 180 and start a sports marketing business with a friend.

We created what now is Sports Image. We’re a sports marketing firm that helps high schools actually all across the country raise dollars, raise sponsorships, get equipment for their athletic department, and that is one side of the business. And then the other side of the business, after going and traveling and seeing that event that I mentioned earlier, slam dunk to the beach decided to get into the event management side of things.

So in today’s world, I guess you can say, I went from engineer to sports marketing to. Sort of a PT Barnum in the event management when I start Flyin to the Hoop. So those are the two big things that I involve myself well, or I get myself involved in. And a lot of people always ask what do they think makes Flyin to the Hoop successful?

And I think one of the things is that you can’t take the engineer out of me. I’m still a list maker. I’m a to-do guy. I’m a checklist guy. A little bit of the OCD engineer in me. And I think that’s the way that I approach it to make sure that all the T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted. And I think the paying attention to the little details has gotten it to where it has today with the reputation nationally as, as a first class event.

So they always say that you what you go to school for might not end up being what you do for a career. And that’s definitely the case with me. But I still think some of those skills can still be applied.

[00:06:00] Mike Klinzing: What did you do? The first year or two.

[00:06:04] Eric Horstman: It’s interesting you said that because not to get into the depths of it, but when I took on Mr.  Jacobs as a partner from slam dunk to the beach out here, he wasn’t the most OCD type of things and left a lot of loose ends. And I guess the biggest thing that I can say that I did is I made sure that if I said it or I promised it, it happened. I’m not one of those that kind of left the empty promises.

I’m not one that told people, Hey, here’s how it’s going to be and then they get to the event. And it wasn’t that first class feeling or the teams that we advertise, we made sure showed up. So I guess in those first couple of years, I did whatever it took to make sure that the product on the floor, in the atmosphere around the facility was first class, regardless of the turmoil or craziness behind the scenes

And I think it’s hard they always say you need to make that good first impression. And I think that’s what they,Truth be told, out of those first couple of years, we so overshot on budget. I continued the event out of necessity to pay myself back for all of the bills that I took out of my own personal pocket to make sure everything was taken care of.

So it’s funny because after those first couple of years the girlfriend that turned into the wife , that’s still today, Laurie, she’s like, Are we going to keep doing this? And I go we’re going to do it because one, I want to be able to pay ourselves back for kind of overshooting that budget.

But two, I saw some promise, I saw a, a light at the end of the tunnel. And it’s one of those things that you hear in the movie all the time. If you build it, they will come. And that’s what we did.

[00:07:58] Mike Klinzing: What were the biggest challenges in getting it off the ground?

[00:08:06] Eric Horstman: I would say really in those first couple of years getting, and we did have some quality teams here but it was giving confidence to the teams around the country that they were coming to an event that they would be proud of. That is first class. What I mean by that, and you’re probably more familiar even than I am with this, that there are so many events that pop up all over the place.

How do you know which are the good ones? Which are the bad ones? Which are you going to show up? And it’s not anything like you were promised. And when we first came out of the woodwork as Flyin to the Hoop, we were no different than any of those other ones. So trying to convince teams from Texas, California, the east coast to come out here on a limited budget.

That was some of the challenges that we faced. And then like any kind of event is to draw up the groundswell of support locally through either ticket sales or sponsorships to be able to pay all those bills. Because again, like anything in life, everybody likes to jump on board when it’s a winner. But the ones that are there with you from the beginning, those are the ones that you that I feel most attached to and loyal to because they took a chance on me.

And I’m a very loyal guy and a lot of those same sponsors and fans are still with us today, which I’m very proud of.

[00:09:36] Mike Klinzing: What did those phone calls, speeches look like when you were calling schools to try to get them to come, as you said, to an event that was unknown at the time that was unproven?

What do you remember about your sales pitch in those first couple years?

[00:09:52] Eric Horstman: You know, as funny as it sounds, one of the big sales pitch was, Hey, you realize how crazy Dayton fans are for basketball. Well, we want to put a prep event on, and those same fans will come out and watch you in front of crowds that you’re not used to maybe playing in front of.

So being from the Dayton area and having it basketball crazy here, that was one of the big sales pitches. We also, which was kind of unheard of at the time we obviously never paid any teams to come here. But what we also did, and we still do to this day, is we helped paid the expenses of the teams to come here.

So we were helping with airfare with hotel rooms, with team meals, with ground transportation. So those were a lot of the sales pitches, if you will in those early years and. Today, I wouldn’t call them a sales pitch anymore. It’s just kind of expected because that’s what we’ve been doing over the past 19 years.

And people have this expectation that, wow, you get invited to the Beacon Orthopedics flyin to the hoop. It’s going to be one of those things where you’re taken care of and everything is taken care of for you. So much so that all you had to do is focus on the basketball. And that’s what we try to pride ourselves on.

[00:11:15] Mike Klinzing: How do you put together, I’m talking now, we’re now we’re jumping ahead to sort of where you are now. How do you put together the list of teams that you like to invite our people? I’m assuming that people are reaching out to you all the time saying, Hey, we’d love to be able to come out. So how do you vet those teams?

And then what’s your thought process in terms of keeping some teams local, whether that’s local to the Dayton area, local to the state of Ohio? How do you try to balance that out as you go through the process?

[00:11:45] Eric Horstman: Right. So here’s the way my engineering brain thinks. First of all, when it comes to the teams, I break up the, the teams in three divisions.

In my mind, this has no bearing on whether they would play each other or not. But the three types or divisions are, you have the local teams, just like you mentioned, and I consider local, the Dayton area primarily, but also going into Cincinnati because it’s really the southwest Ohio area. Team type number two is the state of Ohio.

So then we want to get the best teams from around the state of Ohio to come down here. And then team type number three is what we consider a national team. A national team is any team outside of the border of Ohio. So those three types are what makes up the teams Now, how we get those. Like you mentioned, we are very blessed and I’m humbled to say that each year now that this is absolutely zero exaggeration, Mike, we probably had 130 to 140 different teams reach out to us over the past six to eight months, wanting to be in for this January.

My problem is, is I don’t like being a bad guy and you have to. 70% of those teams, you can’t come. And these are teams with great resumes, and that’s what we always do. We want them to send their rosters, their projected rosters, a little history about the school, you know anything that would help sell them, so to speak for us to look at as far as a matchup, and I mean, you have teams with multiple floor star athletes on ’em and what have you, but we can only fit 35 to 40 teams every year.

So we have to narrow 130 plus teams down to 35 to 40. Having said all that like I said, you know the best sign of an organization is you put smarter people around you. And when it comes to the basketball world, I’m very blessed again to have a lot of connections out there within the state of Ohio that will give me their input on, Hey, here’s going to be the top 10 teams in the state of Ohio, regardless of division for this year, here’s going to be the top 10 teams nationally that, that, that are going to be coming into the new season. Plus, I have become very good friends since year one of the event with an individual that I will call him out on this podcast. His name is John Stovall.

He is from the Ohio. He used to create, and you may even have heard of it, Mike, he used to have a magazine that he and a fellow buddy from Michigan put together. Vince Baldwin called Prep Spotlight. I don’t know if you ever remember that magazine or not, but it was a very popular magazine. He knows more about basketball than I think I know about my own kids he and I became very good friends. I remember year one of Flyin to the Hoop. He came up and said, Hey, I like what you’re doing here. I think you’ve got a first class thing going on. I think that we can help each other out and I can help you kind of scout teams throughout the year and help you put the schedule together.

Well, we haven’t looked back yet, and now it’s year 20, even though. He’s kind of increased in his job scope. He got hired directly by Nike and they moved him out to Oregon and he now runs a big portion of the E Y B L circuit for all of Nike as well as represents a couple of NBA teams and also does work with ESPN and Paul Biancardi on the McDonald’s, all American picks and all of that kind of stuff.

So he is even more entrenched in the basketball world now, and we have remained friends and he flies out here every year for the event. But he and I are the two that sit down and look at the, if you will, lists and resumes of all of these teams that inquire, including the list that we’ve created of who are the best teams, and then we start making some calls or sending some emails and sending out agreements to put the best match-ups on a local.

And, and, and, and having said all of that, our matchups contain, again, a couple of things. One, those three types of schools I mentioned earlier, either the Dayton or Southwest Ohio or the state of Ohio or the national teams. The way that we put the matchups together, we’ve done a lot of fan surveys and the best mix of it is they like to.

Ohio versus Ohio schools that would never see each other unless it’s like in a state championship format or what have you. They like to see Ohio versus national schools to see how Ohio hangs with all of these top tier national teams. And then because of the branding we’ve done over the years, they love seeing two national teams, two juggernauts, beat the crap out of each other on the floor.

And I will tell you that our national teams that come in here, they absolutely are giddy over their experience and the atmosphere and just the quality of fan that we have here for basketball knowledge. So that long-winded answer is the thing that we have developed over the past 19 years to come up with our matchups every year that to date now, like you mentioned earlier, we have over 90 guys in the NBA that have been here on the floor and dating on a high school capacity.

[00:17:09] Mike Klinzing: Well, you’ve

had four number one overall draft picks in the nba, so I’ll let you name those four guys. I have ’em right here in front of me, but I’ll let you name those four guys and then from there we can talk a little bit about some of the players and just some of the things that you’ve seen over the years.

[00:17:26] Eric Horstman: Yeah. The four that we’ve had starting back in 2012, somebody that everybody, or someone that everybody’s probably familiar with, Anthony Davis. Anthony Davis was here when he played with the prospectus charter school. They were out of Chicago, came down here and played, I think it was Meadowdale.

And, and, and honestly, his high. Was not that good. I can’t even remember. I don’t think that they won the game, but Anthony Davis went off for like 35 points or something crazy like that. He was the real deal. Next we had Anthony Bennett in 2013. He was kind of one of those I don’t want to say bus, but you don’t really hear about him anymore.

But Anthony Bennett was here when he played with Finley Prep out of Nevada that we had come out here and Finley Prep before they dissolved. They were out here almost every year. Great group of guys. I’m still friends with their old head coaches as a matter of fact. And then we had, in 2014, we had actually the number one pick and the number two pick.

The number one pick was Andrew Wiggins. He played for Huntington Prep and then the number two pick was Jabari Parker, who played for I think Simian out of. Yep. Yep. So we had number one and number two. And then our latest number one pick was in 2018 and that was Deandre Ayton, who is tearing it up in the NBA as we speak.

And we’ve had, I, like you said, a lot of other very close to number ones, but those are the four number one picks we’ve had so far, and I’m sure there’s going to be more in the future.

[00:19:02] Mike Klinzing: All right. So of the guys that have come through, obviously you’ve seen most slash all of them throughout those years, and clearly how they are as a 15 year old sophomore or a 16 year old junior, or a 17 year old senior may be different than what they look like when they get to the NBA.

And there may be guys who. Didn’t eventually reach the level of notoriety that those four guys that you just mentioned. Right. Got to. So when you think back to maybe a player that didn’t maybe get to the same heights as those guys, is there a guy or two that sort of stands out that you’re like, Man, this guy was unbelievable when he was here, that maybe people haven’t heard of or maybe just didn’t get to that same level that those guys got to?

[00:19:50] Eric Horstman: You know what’s interesting is a lot of people talk about you know, a lot of the players we have here, and I’m going on record with you saying it because everybody gets a kick out of it. Do you actually think I sit there and watch every game? No. The the reason I say it is what I like to, Yes. But I got 8,000 things in this engineering braiding going on behind the scenes.

Absolutely. II’m running like a chicken with his head cut off. Now, if you had, like I said, Stovall on here. Yes. He sits his button a seat and watches all the games, which I get jealous of, but that’s his job. But the point is, is yes, over the years I’ve seen a lot of them and we can go into some of the, my favorite games, but we’ve had a lot of great performances.

Like I mentioned, I mean I’ll tell you what, the, the Andrew Wiggins he was always here putting on performances but more so Huntington Prep when we put ’em against Prolific Prep out of California, two years in a row. One year prolific prep wins on a buzzer beater, and the next year Huntington Prep wins on a buzzer beater.

I mean, some of the, some of my games, I couldn’t have written a better script, but as far as individual games, one that just came up the other day that was in conversation because I got an email it was in 2015 and I got the email in front of me. That’s how I knew it. He played for Walnut Hills and you probably recognized the game and he hasn’t made a huge impact yet at the next level.

But remember a guy that helped Baylor win a National Champion Ship by the name of Maycot. Yep, for sure. He was here, he put up 51 points in a fly into the hoop game. Wow. Back in 2015. And he, he first I think, went to like something like UNC Asheville. He was not a high level recruit. Great player. Comes here, puts up 51 points.

It was one heck of a game. And then later on ends up on National Champion and was a big part of that down at Baylor. So that’s another individual game right there. But a lot of the guys that you can imagine Another one that was a crowd favorite. Josh Jackson that’s, that’s now that played on Prolific Prep.

He was one of the ones that hit the last second half court, three point shot to, to beat Huntington Prep. And I mean, I’ll tell you that there’s a lot of scripts that were written over the years that man, I, they played out better than I could have ever expected. that just alludes to the lore. And not trying to get ahead of myself, but that was one of the survey questions, Mike, that we actually asked our fans are what are some of the best games that you ever saw it Flyin to the Hoop?

And we ended up getting it narrowed down to three, if you wanted me to go into that a little bit. Sure. Yeah, I’d love to hear that. So so the three and of. One that’s always freshest in the mind and turned out to be number one, is the one that happened last year. So I’ll mention that. That’s where and you’re probably well aware of how good Centerville High School was last year.

They were on what, some ungodly 35 game win streak from winning their, the state championship the year before to running the gauntlet all year last year up until the state title game against Pick Central. You know what I mean? But along that way, last year they were, they, they didn’t back down from anybody.

They did not play any powder puffs. So coming into flying to the hoop. I told Coach Cupps, I said, Hey, you’re going to get a big one. So we put them on a Sunday night. They were still undefeated for like a season and a half. Number one in Ohio. We put them against a team called Southern California Academy out of Southern California.

They were a top 10 team in the nation. Every kid on their squad was going division one. I mean, they were fully loaded. They were top 10. They came in. On, on Ride and High, they were playing. Well, that game was standing room only. The fire marshal will tell you that it was probably over full , and I would probably have to agree with him, but I’ll tell you what, Centerville punched them in the mouth from the opening belt and never let up and beat Southern Cow by 20 on that floor.

And I mean, the media, the coaches that were there, the fans were going crazy, but they couldn’t believe how Senator Go had just dismantled them. It was such a game that all year, all summer, Coach Julius from Southern California Academy was blowing up my phone. They’re coming back again and he wanted a rematch so bad he could taste it and we’re giving him that right?

There you go. Sunday night in January, it’s going to be the rematch. Centerville again versus SoCal. So that’s one of ’em. Another one we had Dunbar, which has always been a power back in the day here in the Dayton area, won a couple of state championships under Peter Poland. They were ranked statewide.

We had Whitney Young out of Chicago come in here that was a top 10 in the nation, and that was a track meet. It was absolutely a track meet. And Dunbar beat them by 10, 15 points. So if you can see a pattern here, a lot of the favorite games are when Ohio teams are playing the national teams and it puts they put ’em on ’em.

Now, my favorite game I ever, ever witnessed was another one, just like that. And it was the third or second or third in, in the survey. It was where Wayne High School when Travis Trice was the head coach there. And they won that state championship. They were ranked number one in the state at that time.

And we had Finley Prep out in Nevada that was also ranked number one in the nation. So we had number one in Ohio versus number one in the nation. It started the opening tip, Wayne got it. OU did to trade lands who spent a career at ud, OU dunk for the first two points of the of the game. Nobody in the gym sat down for the rest of the game.

To give you an idea, again, we were way over capacity again, standing room only. I have Rick Pitino on my right and Tom Iso on my left watching the game. And they’re like two kids in a candy store eating popcorn, just enjoying the talent on the floor. The basketball game, it comes down to the wire number one in Ohio versus number one in the nation, and it goes to overtime and Wayne ends up beating them.

It was one of the biggest upsets or the best games I have ever seen. People are going nuts. I’m sitting here, the engineering anxiety freak going, How am I going to get Zo and Rick Pitino out of the gym without them getting trampled? They’re like national treasurers and they’re sitting here like any other fan, and I just want ’em to get in their cars and go, so I don’t have to worry about ’em anymore.

But that was one of the memories that I’ll always have. Now I can sit back and say, I enjoyed watching the game, but during it, holy cow. I mean, it was. Standing room only college coaches from everywhere. It was the last game on a Monday night and I slept good. Good. That night. I can tell you that.

[00:27:04] Mike Klinzing: I’m sure you did talk a little bit about the venue for people who maybe aren’t familiar with it?

[00:27:08] Eric Horstman: For the first five years of the event, we were at Vandalia Butler High School, The SAC, the Student Activity Center, if some people were familiar with that, right near the Dayton Airport, so it worked out well.

And then the Trent Arena got built. Trent Arena is named after Jim Trent, who was like one of our super fans, if you will. He was also superintendent of Kettering school systems. So Trent Arena is Kettering High School. It’s used as multi-purpose facility for the school for a gymnasium as well as the city, what have you.

The fire marshal will tell you seats a little under 4,000. I can tell you that five thousands fit in there pretty well too. too. But it is a great venue for locker rooms area for a hospitality suite, a big open atrium for a concession area where we have the ticket entrance with a bunch of kiosks of our sponsors.

It’s. Arena type of seating with seating all around the court. So truly there’s not a bad seat in the place. If anything. The only thing I wish that there were more of is reserve seating, because we always sell those out so fast. I wish there was more reserve seating over general mission. But other than that, the facility is awesome and truly the Trent Arena and Vandalia Butler’s Gym are the two biggest facilities in the Dayton area on the high school level.

The next level up is obviously UD Arena, where the fires play, and the Nutter Center where the right state Raiders play. But we don’t even have to go into this, but through weird NCAA recruiting rules, Private events, like my event cannot be held at a division one college. So right now we are at more than capacity for the two venues that we’re, we have available if I’m to keep it in the Dayton area.

[00:29:06] Mike Klinzing: So you don’t want to use your engineering and just build yourself in arena.?

[00:29:11] Eric Horstman: Use my engineering if we could use your 15 million.

[00:29:16] Mike Klinzing: There you go. Exactly. That will have it all taken care of. I get it. I completely, I completely understand. When you have teams come in from out of town, or even whether it’s from across the country or just from outside the regional area, how do you go about distributing tickets to their fans?

What’s that relationship like with the ad, the coach of those teams, as you’re kind of going through the logistics of getting those teams there, especially the first time teams who maybe haven’t been to your event.

[00:29:42] Eric Horstman: Right. What basically, and, and again, it kind of, it kind of comes back to, to the engineering me and honestly, I have thought about maybe even doing future webinars and stuff on the event management 101 or event Management for Dummies.

You know, the reason why I say that is, I don’t want to say I have it down to a science, but basically I’ve created a spreadsheet slash checklist that literally I follow every year, and it tells me each month, What are the things that you need to accomplish this month? And each month that list gets longer and longer leading up to the event.

But as long as I follow that, then no things go unturned, you know? And all the T’s are crossed and Ira dotted. Now why I say that is cause part of that is I lead the teams down that rabbit hole in a very succinct and organized manner. The way I look at it is I work out a four databases. I have our ticket ticketing and fan database.

I have our sponsors database, I have our teams database, and I have our media database, and I. Emails and templates and communication set up for all four of those. So case in point here at the first week of November, every team is going to get an email from me saying, All right, we’re putting together our official program.

We take a lot of pride in this. It’s about a 90 page full color program. Every team is going to have a full color spread, but you’re only going to get that full color spread if over the next four weeks you get me. These things your roster with, with all that information, your team picture and electronic version of your logo, and any other information you want us to know about the team.

That email’s going to go to them the first week in November. A lot of them that have been here already know it. The ones that haven’t been here are about ready to know it, but we lead them right down that path all the way leading into January. That’s why a lot of folks that come here, they’re like, Man, we love it.

We know we don’t have to worry about anything. We just wait to get your emails and you’re going to land and date.

[00:31:58] Mike Klinzing: From your perspective and the things that you’re doing on a day to day basis, when is your busiest week of work? Is it that week leading up to it where you’re kind of doing all the prep work?

Is it during the actual days of the event? Is it some other time where you’re putting things together? Just how do you break out or how do you think about when your busiest time is?

[00:32:25] Eric Horstman: You know what, that’s a good question. And I would actually say I would say that there are three distinct times that I get the busiest.

Number one just happened last week. We’ve turned. Thing of our event into a show kind of throughout the year. And it started last week with our official press conference. I don’t know if you saw any of that on social media or I did. I, I did. So to give you an idea you know, we put a full-fledged press conference together.

There was about 70 to 75 folks in that press conference. All the Dayton TV stations, Dayton Daily News, Marcus Burnett, my. Buddy from SUV TV that we were mention we were talking about a little bit earlier. He flew up from Atlanta to, to live stream it. And we unveiled the schedule. We invite any team that wants to bring couple their players and the coach.

It’s like a get out of school free card. That day we had 10 teams show up along with the media. And that’s where we unveil the schedule and that’s when tickets go on sale. So it does get crazy busy that week because prior to that, we’re setting up all the ticketing electronically. I’m putting together the website with our IT folks behind the scenes because they specifically know that at 11:30 AM on that Tuesday morning, they flip the switch, which is when I should be announcing the schedule during our press conference, when the site goes live with the new players to watch the new schedule, the tickets are open, and all of that kind of stuff.

So all that’s being done behind the scenes and the days leading up to. Then once we unveil the schedule, it’s very hectic over the next couple of days because we got ticket sales going like crazy. The phone’s ringing off the hook, we’re doing interviews and, and all of that kind of stuff. And then the teams are all excited about seeing the schedule go live.

So that is, I would say, crazy time during number one. And just to show you how crazy it was, I was actually shocked at this, but Marcus sent us the report from the, the, the press conference, his web stream. It got viewed live or on demand 8,000 times. Wow. Holy cow. 8,000 times. This is just a press conference to announce a schedule in the middle of football season.

I was shocked that there was that many people. So that just shows you, again, I say it humbly speaking, but that just shows you how blessed we are and what kind of a brand and a following. We have 8,000 people wanted to know about the schedule on that Tuesday that, that tuned in to the webstream. But live or shortly thereafter.

So I was shocked with that number. So that would be crazy time number one. I would say crazy. Time number two is that first couple of weeks of December, because people officially are flipping the switch from high school football to high school basketball, and once high school basketball kicks in, then they’re like, Ooh, we have to get our tickets to the tournament.

We got, I start talking more heavily with sponsors, this, that and the other. And then obviously the third time would probably be the week leading up to the event and the event itself, just because of all of that chaos. And I wouldn’t even say it’s so much chaos because we have our list of what we need to do.

It’s all those ancillary things that happen, all the impromptu interviews and or people calling about ticket issues or looking at the team travel or making sure Mother Nature isn’t going to screw me over again. Looking at all of that kind of stuff. So it’s all of those Murphy’s Law type of things.

[00:36:01] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I’m sure there’s always things that pop up.

What’s something that was, I guess, something that really. Totally unexpected, sort of over the history of the, of the tournament. What are some sort of crazy or strange issues? Have you had anything like that pop up that you had to handle? I’m sure you have.

[00:36:17] Eric Horstman: Oh, yeah. Well, we could talk days about the mother nature issue.

Mother nature and I are not on a first name basis because I don’t know what it is. Even just to give you an idea. This past Martin Luther King weekend, this past January a week, five days, three days out of the event, it looked like it was going to be a beau beautiful weekend. I was like, What is going on here?

And it, it turned on me on Sunday of the event, the day we have six games a day. But Sunday was the day of that big Centerville versus Southern California Academy game I just told you about. We had a blizzard down here out of nowhere, a blizzard, and it still, there were four to 5,000 people in that gym.

It was unbelievable. So once we’re in the gym, we came outside the gym. I, I mean, there was literally. I don’t know how many inches of snow out there. We weren’t expecting any snow. And it was there. So Mother Nature really has it out for me every year, but that’s what we deal with being in January,

[00:37:19] Mike Klinzing: Well you, when you thought you were getting out of baseball, I was going to stay off the top and you said, Well, I didn’t want to stay in baseball.

I was going to say, Well, at least with basketball you don’t have to deal with the weather.

[00:37:27] Eric Horstman: But evidently I was wrong. Yeah. And, and the things about the weather are twofold. One, we’ve had like snow emergencies where the, the, the city wanted people to stay off the roads and I’m like, but I want the fans to come to the game, tickets and, and I don’t want empty gyms and what have you.

So, so it’s that the safety of the fans obviously is always first and getting fans of the games, but number two, what a lot of people don’t think about, Yeah, it’s in the gym, but the travel. Of a lot of these teams, remember the ones nationally and even the ones from up in your neck in the woods. I remember having the, the conversations with Sonny Johnson at Garfield and Cheru at Mason, or at, or Che Mason at brush going you guys are going to be on that bus coming down here tomorrow.

Right. You know, so it’s a lot of, they have to get here again. We want ’em to get here safely, but you never know. They, they’ve moved up their plans, Hey, we’re going to come down the night before because it’s supposed to start snowing overnight and we don’t think we can make it in the morning. So that’s all the kind of stuff that is going on behind the scenes that nobody knows about.

And we have had. Several over the years. Teams not be able to make it just because of, they had a covid outbreak these past couple of years. They had travel issues that they couldn’t get here. And that’s where I guess myself and John Stovall really earn our paycheck, if you will, because we are within the span of 24 to 48 hours trying to find replacement teams so that at least only one team is penalized the one that can’t be here, obviously, which stinks.

But we don’t want that other team to go without playing a game at the event in front of all of those college coaches and Right. So we have pulled some definite rabbits out of our hats in order to get all of the games played that we had.

[00:39:19] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think anytime, I don’t care what kind of event you’re talking about from a local AAU tournament to a big event like this, I think everybody’s nworst nightmare is, yeah, you have a team that. Shows up and then you have another team that for whatever reason, right, can’t make it or doesn’t show up, and that that’s not, that’s never the situation that anybody wants. It’s just something that I’m sure that, as you said, that you work hard to avoid.

[00:39:42] Eric Horstman: Well, and, and I tell these teams, we’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure that you, your kids, because again, humbly speaking, a lot of kids this is their Super Bowl, they might not ever have a chance to play on a national stage like this again.

And we want give that, And that’s my two main reasons for doing this event that, that I’m most proud of is one, helping the city of Dayton. You know, it’s in the middle of January, Dayton in January is not a tourist destination, right? And they’ve done studies where this event has an economic impact to the tune of about a, a million and a half dollars for that weekend for area businesses, airport, gas station, restaurants, hotels, all the above.

I’m very proud of that since I live here. And then number two, and the most important. We wanted to give kids a chance to play on a national stage. And as a direct, not only do we think we’re doing that, but as a direct result of them being here, these kids are getting scholarship offers that they might not have gotten if they weren’t here to put on the performances that they have.

[00:40:53] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I think that’s a great point in terms of for most high school kids, obviously there’s a lot of guys that have played in Flyin to the Hoop that have gone on and played major division one college basketball, and clearly you have a long list for anybody who wants to go check it out on the website.

Flyin to the Hoop.com, you’ll be able to see all the list of players that have played in the nba, but the vast majority of kids who are on rosters of teams that are playing, there are kids who high school basketball may be the pinnacle of what they do in their basketball career, and those kids are never going to get a chance to play in front of four or 5,000 people that are making noise and be able to experience that.

I think, Sometimes we discount how exciting that can be to play in that kind of environment. I think it’s just, if you’re a high school player, the chance to play in front of that type of crowd and that type of environment I think is unbelievable. And then the second piece that you mentioned about getting kids an opportunity to have college programs looking at them and eventually have the opportunity to get a college scholarship and get their education paid for, I’m sure that’s a big part of what you’re proud of in terms of the event, which means that you have to have college coaches there that are in attendance.

So over the years, I don’t know how much you’ve gotten a chance to interact with the coaches on a personal level, but do you have a favorite coach or two or maybe a story from a coach that has come through that you’ve gotten a chance to talk to or just seen that you can share with us?

[00:42:20] Eric Horstman: Well that is kind of funny because every year we never know who’s going to walk in the door.

And, and it is kind of like the who’s who over the years, and I can’t even think of all of the folks like, well, one of the biggest circuses and everybody talks about is the year, and you probably have talked about this with Justin when you’ve had him on, is the year Spire Academy was down here with LaMelo Ball.

Yeah. We had the entire ball family here, which was like a circus . We had HBO here filming our event for their ball in the family, hbo thing that they had for a couple of seasons. I mean, it was crazy. And then a lot of people were in the stands going if they only realized there is LaVar Ball and his wife and Leangelo watching La Melo and sitting right behind them.

Being so quiet. I forget what college he’s at. Is an NBA retired superstar, Mitch Richmond, and nobody even recognized him.

[00:43:27] Mike Klinzing: Mitch Richmond, Kansas State.

[00:43:29] Eric Horstman: Yeah. So he’s there and nobody even recognizes him. Just the craziness. Another year I’m standing there in walks, Kenny, the Jet Smith. I’m like, You’re Kenny Smith.

Yep. He had a distant relative’s friend. Play for IMG Academy. That was up that year. They said, Hey, if you’re going to come to watch him play, you ought to come up to the fly of the hoop tournament. I think you’ll enjoy it. He stayed here for like a day and a half. The only reason he left on Monday is he had to get back for TNT on TBS

And then he gave us a shout out that night. Hey, I spent the weekend and dating at an awesome event, which was awesome. So he’s been here and the, and I haven’t even gotten into the coaches yet. One year, one of the teams was out of Texas that we had a Christian school out of Texas. Me and a couple of buddies are standing there.

The team walks in. I the coach introduces himself to me. Were talking, one of the assistants walked by and I’m kind of like looking at him. I’m like, You look familiar. It’s Charlie Ward Heisman Trophy winner and what, 20 year career within Nick’s? Yep. He, he was an assistant coach on the. So spent some time with him.

But as far as college coaches, I mean, we’ve, we’ve had all the college coaches in o in Ohio you know, here every year, the Caliparis, I told you about Pitino Tom Izzo’s one of my favorites. He’s a great guy, just so down to earth. One year, Andy Infield walks in uscs head coach. Were like, Dude, you, you’re from all the way across the country.

You guys got a game in the area? He goes, Nope. I specifically came all the way across the country for this event to scout a couple of guys you have here. So I’m like, Well, it’s freezing here and you’re in a T-shirt. This isn’t Southern California. You’re going to eat something a little bit heavier here.

But it’s just crazy that every year we never know who’s going to walk in the door. The one that’s here almost every year, he is like a fixture anymore, is Hugs. Bob Huggins. He’s always over here. So but it’s, it’s interesting every year you never know who might walk in the door, and I think that’s part of the reasons why the fans like it so much, because as long as the coach is cool with it, we’re very systematic about it during timeouts or halftime, if the coach will allow.

Fans to get autographs and pictures. It’s like a conveyor belt and they just shuffle through there. So I’ve had so many fans come up to me over the years going, My kid loves your event. He still has this picture with to Izzo hanging on the wall. Or you know, Anthony Davis gave him his autograph. Or one year a kid had his head shaved and he had the entire national team, I think it was Finley prepped sign, his head

Literally he went home with autographs all over his balded head in a Sharpie. That’s, I thought I was going to get in. I thought I was going to get a phone call from his mom. We obviously took a picture of it. I have it somewhere, but I don’t remember where it’s at.

[00:46:23] Mike Klinzing: You needed to use silly putty or something and capture those, capture those signatures.

[00:46:27] Eric Horstman: So yeah, over the year we’ve had a lot of crazy stuff go on.

[00:46:31] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that’s fun. I mean, I think the opportunity. As you said, for fans or for kids to be able to, and again, not just the kids who are being recruited, but you know, if you’re just an average high school player and you’re getting to sit down and play a game and there’s Rick Pitino or there’s Chris Holtman from Ohio State or whatever, whoever it may be, getting the opportunity to have those coaches there while you’re playing I’m sure is a thrill.

I know that I went up this year to the, the, that first year event Midwest live that the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association put on at Cedar Point, and just about every coach, I think in the Big 10 was there and almost all the division one schools from Ohio, and then there was guys from neighboring states as well.

And so that was kind of fun just to be able to walk around and, hey, there’s, there’s Juwan Howard, or there’s, and you know, there’s, there’s iso and for, again, for the average high school player, Or for the average high school player’s parent who’s a basketball fan and you’re walking around and you know, again, it’s a little brush with celebrity as you’re, as you’re going through and, and seeing these guys.

And so I can, I can definitely relate to the idea that that adds to the prestige, mystique, whatever you want to call it, of the event that you have some of these big name coaches and obviously they’re there to look at marquee players and guys who are eventually going to go on to have tremendous success in their careers, which I think has have to be for you.

You know, when you start looking at those lists of coaches that have been through, and then you look at your list that you have on your website, of all the players that have come through that have gotten an opportunity to play in the NBA. And obviously you have some other guys who are playing professionally in other sports as well, which isn’t surprising.

But I think you look at that and it’s, I’m. A tremendous amount of pride. And as you said a couple times, you talked about being able to put on the event and that in the early years it was, you were putting a lot of your own money into it to kind of get it up and get it going. And now you’ve got relationships with a lot of sponsors in the community.

Talk a little about how you go about getting those sponsors, what that looks like, and just how you put together a package that’s enticing for them to be a part of flying into the hoop.

[00:48:37] Eric Horstman: Well, it like I’ve said repetitively over this conversation, I’m all about relationships, so my goal is to over deliver to anybody that wants to be a part of this in the first year so that they felt so treated so well.

That they continue to come back and that can be said for over half of our sponsors have been with us for the, for the life of the event. We’re, we are, we did just change title sponsors this past summer. It had been Premier Health for about 10 years. Great relationship ended on a good note and everything.

It just was with the signs of the time and the craziness of Covid or whatever. It wasn’t their thing. And we actually signed on with Beacon Orthopedics that’s going to be taking care of all of our athletic training and our new title sponsor this year. A smaller outfit, more agile, able to do a lot more unique things that I’m going to be looking forward to and looking forward to starting that relationship.

But I think they’ve been impressed so far with how that press conference went, that that was their first taste to fly into the hoop about a week ago. But other than, We have had relationships with the Nikes, the Gatorades, the Pepsis, Dick Sporting Goods. Those are some of the bigger, I don’t want to say chains, but some of the bigger, more corporate well known names.

But the interesting thing is, is we get a lot of. Realtors insurance agents, CPAs, smaller businesses that not only want the chance to do a little bit of branding right here in southwest Ohio, but honestly, a lot of them want the tickets. , the VIP for sure. Absolutely. And that they’re sitting next to all of those coaches and celebrities that I just talked to you about because their clients love coming with them, or it’s their kids that are making them come with them every year, because every year it wouldn’t be Christmas if those Flyin to the Hoop tickets weren’t under the tree or in the stocking for those kids on Christmas morning.

And I think that helps with our timing of everything mid-January, right after Christmas. So they do get him as, as Christmas gifts and even more so I don’t know about you, but by January after the holiday, I’m depressed, I’m ready for spring. There’s nothing forward to, well boom, middle of January we got Flyin to the Hoop and everybody marks that on their calendar and it’s something else to look forward to to get ’em through the winter until spring.

[00:51:10] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. There’s clearly a lot of events around the holidays when you talk about high school events and different places across the country. Obviously there’s a lot in Florida, there’s a lot in Arizona. And with the success that you’ve been able to have with Flyin to the Hoop, have you had any thought at any point about trying to do this in another venue and expanding and, and I don’t know, having, having some satellite you know, satellite campuses, is that something that you’ve thought about?

And if you have you know, sort of where are you on your thought process?

[00:51:44] Eric Horstman: We have seriously discussed doing a potential Atlanta version of Flyin to the Hoop one because of the connections, like I mentioned to you earlier, that I have down there. And second, besides Ohio, we have more Georgia teams.

Hit my inbox to be a part of this event every year than any other state. And there is very good basketball in Georgia with the PACE Academies and wheelers and the McKees and the Noro. I mean, you have some huge heavy hitters down there that they have all been up here to the event. I have great relationships with all of those coaches.

Like I mentioned earlier, SUV TV is based out of Atlanta, so they are very well entrenched down there. Atlanta is a hotbed of basketball and it’s seven hours down I 75 from the Dayton, Cincinnati.

[00:52:46] Mike Klinzing: Do you think it’s something that it, is there, do you think it’s, do you think it’s going to happen or is it still sort of in the really preliminary stages?

[00:52:56] Eric Horstman: It’s in the preliminary stages, but I would say I would put it right now at a 50 50.

[00:53:03] Mike Klinzing: Gotcha. All right, so you’ve talked a lot about the different teams and you know, we, we mentioned how you’re getting the hundred, 30, 140 requests from teams that, that want to come and be a part of it.

How do you prioritize teams that have been to fly into the hoop in the past versus bringing in teams that haven’t been there for, In other words, if you have a team that is good year in and year out, are you okay with them coming every year? Do you like to mix it up? Just what’s your philosophy as far as that goes?

[00:53:34] Eric Horstman: All of the above. Got it. Makes sense. Yeah. Here’s what I mean by that. Every year, so a couple of years ago, we started for the first time ever a girls game. So we have one girl’s game on Saturday morning that has become a huge hit. I didn’t want the girls to feel excluded. I know that that’s two slots taking away from two guys teams off that list.

But it was important. So now we have girls game in there as well as I also put like a small school matchup in. So last year I can’t put a small school match up or a small school against like a Huntington Prep or a Southern California Academy or you know, a Compass Prep out of Arizona, any of those big national teams.

But if you put two small schools against each other that would never play each other again unless it’s in the state finals. Like last year we had Tri Village versus Botkins and it, they were the state champs one year, and the other team was the state champs the next year. And it was, it went into double overtime, first game of the day, packed house.

Because some of those small schools, they’ll shut down the town, their entire town will come to these events. But we’re really happy that we’ve started introducing like division four games to the event. But when it comes to, like you mentioned, the same schools every year, really. It comes down, Mike, to a matter of talent.

If you have the talent. Take for instance, like Centerville. They’ve been in it maybe for like five, six years straight now because they have the talent and I can put ’em up against anybody, right? If there’s going to be an Ohio school that I want to put up against a national team, it’s going to be a center bill that could compete another one this year that we have, and this is one of the matchups that I’m most looking forward to is pick central.

Eric Kruger there in Columbus. They year in and year out can play ball. They’re the divi defending state champs for division one. They got Devin Royal, who you know is going to Ohio State, who’s a five star kid. And we have them. It’s going to be neat. At State champ versus state champ, we have the state champs of Indiana Cathedral High School coming over here.

They are ranked not only Indiana number one, they’re ranked nationally and they have by some recruiting sites. They have the number one senior in the nation, His name Xavier Booker, who actually came over for the press conference. He is a five star that’s already committed to Michigan State. So we literally have pick Central State champ, Devon Royal, going against Cathedral High School State Champ, nationally rank and Xavier.

So that’s the kind of matchups that we put together. That’s why Pick Central will continue to come to the event because they have that kind of quality basketball that I could put ’em up against the national teams. Nobody wants to come and watch a blowout. Yes, we’ve had blowouts in the past, but I look at the fans or if anybody says anything, I’m like, Do you really think when we put this matchup together that we go, Hey, that’s,

[00:56:34] Mike Klinzing: They’re high school kids.  Right? It happens.

[00:56:36] Eric Horstman: Exactly. And you never know, honestly, injuries, things of that nature. I mean, it is what it is, but when we’re putting these matchups together in August, we’re hoping everything stays the same all the way through January with high school kids traveling across the country in winter.

[00:56:54] Mike Klinzing: Tell me a little bit about how, if I’m a fan, I’m listening to the podcast, I’m a coach in the state of Ohio, I want to come down and watch games.

Tell me a little bit about the process for trying to secure some tickets and what that looks like?

[00:57:08] Eric Horstman: The biggest thing is we are very, very heavy on social media and keeping up with our website. So Instagram, Twitter, fly, and, and Facebook. If you search Flyin to the Hoop, you’ll see we have a very good following.

And when we’re very active, that’s part of our whole marketing thing. Part of the checklist leading into January as well as everything feeds into the website and with the website you’ve got the schedule, the players to watch. You can order tickets right now and one of our, it used to be the sales pitch and it sounds like it is Mike, but it’s really not anymore.

What I tell the teams that are participating, we’ll use we’ll use Pick Central as an example just since I just mentioned them. What, and they know this by now cause they’ve been down here enough. But what I tell them is I say, Look, you’re going to want to let your fans know obviously that you’re in the event and give ’em the link for the tickets because the last thing I want is for their fans or mom and dad from the team to drive down to Trent Arena on a Sunday Pick Central’s playing on Monday.

I don’t want them driving down Monday afternoon thinking that they’re going to get a ticket when we could be sold out. And they’re going to get here and we’re already sold out because what most people don’t realize is we sell the ticket for the day. We think it’s a very good deal. It’s 20 bucks. You’re going to see six games for $20 and six of the best games in talent and who knows who else in the stands for 20 bucks.

But once that seat is sold, it’s sold all day. So my point is, is once we sell out, it’s gone. So if they sell out the first game of the day, or we sell it a week prior to the event, you’re not going to get any tickets. So we always let the teams know, Hey, make sure that at least your fans realize they have the option to do this.

They can still drive down here and take a chance. Because we will sell tickets at the door, obviously, if we’re not sold out. But to be, it’s better to be safe than sorry. You can grab ’em online and have ’em and, and, and have ’em in your, in your phone.

[00:59:08] Mike Klinzing: That makes complete sense. All right. Before we wrap up, I want to ask you one final question, just sort of about the future.

Of Flyin to the Hoop. Where do you see yourself five years from now? I know we already talked about the potential of moving one and starting up another event in Georgia, but when you think about where you’re at, where you want to be, how do you see this thing moving forward? And then after that, we’ll, we’ll let you share just again, the website and all the social media for people as we wrap up.

[00:59:39] Eric Horstman: It’s interesting that you say that because five years from now, I mean, we’re pretty much already maxing out the facility that we’re at. We’re getting some of the best teams in the nation, some of the best teams in Ohio. We have some, some of the most loyal and rabid fan base out there. I know this sounds cheesy, but I want to keep doing what we’re doing.

I’m always looking to add more quality sponsors, as anybody. I’m always looking to. perfect. The behind the scenes as best that I can to alleviate any hiccups that I can. And that’s why every year we tweak this checklist, we tweak our process, we make it more and more efficient. I’m all about efficiencies.

I want to make it as efficient as we can so that we can maximize revenues, things of that nature. Really looking to do more of a presence with our partnership with SUTV on the webstream, since we’re maxed out in the facility, and you already heard the numbers we had just for the press conference, we think that some of the future is in the paper view that we do live there.

Marcus and SUtv, they do three camera angles. He brings in color commentators for the, the event. It is very professionally done. We think that that’s another potential revenue stream. Plus it’s the ability for some of these national. That have parents that can’t fly across the country for every event, they would be able to get on board as well as college coaches and watch this either live or after the fact because they paid 20 bucks for the weekend or something like that.

So increasing that venue as far as our technology capabilities would be one thing. And then I think we already hit on it five years from now. You know, let’s be optimistic. I would love to say that we now have a Flyin to the Hoop Atlanta. That would be very cool as well. That would be very cool.

[01:01:39] Mike Klinzing: All right, before we wrap up, share website, social media, how people can reach out to you, find out more about Flyin to the Hoop, get their tickets, all that, And then once you’re done, I will jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:01:51] Eric Horstman: Yeah. Well one, I want to say thank you for having me. I appreciated the discussion. I hope I didn’t bore you too much, but I appreciate the time and, and the platform.

And again if you want to follow from during the event, prior to the event, getting tickets we’re really heavy on social media @FlyintotheHoop on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or you can go to www.flyingtothehoop.com. There you will find everything from history players in the NBA schedule, ticketing directions, players to watch for the upcoming year, everything as well as we’ll keep you updated on our social media.

But that’s the best way. And one important thing too, for a lot of maybe coaches that are listening, if you’re interested in potentially being in the event in the future, we start the process usually around springtime. And the number one thing that we’re going to ask is please email us some information about your projected roster for the upcoming year, as well as a little bit of stuff about your program so that we can evaluate you to see if you’re a good match or a good fit with another team that we have.

[01:03:08] Mike Klinzing: Eric, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to jump on and share all the great things that you have done and are continuing to do with Flyin to the Hoop for coaches out there, for players, for anybody in the state of Ohio, or anybody who loves high school basketball. Great event and make sure you get out to it.

Again, Eric, congratulations on what you’ve been able to build and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.