I’m Grant Gardner and you’re listening to Statistically Speaking, a podcast from the Samford University Center for Sports Analytics in Birmingham, Alabama. I’m Zachary Taunton and each week we are going to explore how big data and advances analytics is impacting the business side of sports. So, here is this week’s episode... --- Zachary Taunton (ZT): Welcome back to Statistically Speaking, my name is Zachary Taunton. Today we have a very special guest, one Brock Fogle, CEO of Vintage Sports. How are you doing today Brock? Brock Fogle (BF): Doing well, it’s good to be on the show. ZT: Tell us what you do, tell us about Vintage Sports. BF: Yeah, Vintage Sports is a collector and antique sports memorabilia provider. So, we do a lot of e-commerce, online sales. My business partner, he will go around the world with all his business contacts and procure various sports memorabilia and my job is to make sure it gets sold. ZT: So where does one go to find vintage sports gear? BF: That's a good question. So, lots of different places actually. It depends on what you're looking for, obviously. So, you have a lot of specifically American sports. So for instance, my partner is connected with Michael Jordan and Michael Jordan actually contacted us and wants us to sell some of his stuff. Or coaches, so we're connected to the coach of Barcelona so we’ll be in Spain and he's connected us with people in Paris for the European Rugby Association. So all over the world actually. ZT: Ok, so can you give us some examples of what vintage sports equipment might be? Are we talking about an old football? What are we talking about? BF: Yeah, so it’s a large range and we do signed and very exclusive memorabilia, but we also recreate and reproduce different items. Examples of that would be we are in the workings of closing out a deal with Barcelona to sell their official vintage soccer ball. But we also have these ‘66 World Cup England jerseys all signed and we have ice axes from New Zealand from the original explorers that went out during World War 1 that we will sell, we also have golf bags from the 1920s. So it's pretty much his dream job of just going and finding really neat things and then me helping make sure the logistics happen behind that. ZT: That definitely sounds like a pretty niche market. So, where do you go to sell some of this stuff? Who’s buying it? BF: Yeah so it depends on the specific item of course. So with a lot of rugby stuff we’re not going to sell that in America. We're going to go advertise in Europe and Australia and New Zealand specifically. And so the way that we have gone about it is, we will launch at the end of this month, but it’s an online store. So, it's not going to be auction based, it's going to be kinda just a buying frenzy. You come on to the store, it's fun because there's always new items up, and you can kinda go through and see is there anything left in the Michael Jordan exclusives. Or man that's a really cool poster from the first Olympics that you can only get through us. We have exclusive right to a couple posters. Then you will go on and there’s only 200 of those. So, pretty much going for those aging people that have some money, have some discretionary income, and love sports and have been impacted from it growing up. And now we have stuff that they can buy. ZT: Fantastic. So tell me a little bit about your business partner. Who is he and how did he get this thing started? BF: Yeah so his name’s Bernard Frei. So, he dropped out of school at 16 and he has created - this is his 10th business. He's from London and so he played rugby internationally and in that it is really just this fraternity of guys, your team, and you could stay connected throughout your life. A lot of them have gone out into some of these jobs, but he started with sports actually by chance running into a couple of guys at a bar in New York who were the founders of Sports Endeavors and those gentleman then brought him on and they created 365 Sport Incorporated downtown in Birmingham. Bernard was the president of that and they hired a guy named Jeff Stephens on and they took that to over a $100 million company. Through that time with World Soccer Shop and World Rugby Shop they connected with all these people. They sold that, but they kept on having people tell them, “Hey we want more merchandise.” Different companies like Nike were like, “Hey, we have all the current day stuff, but we have all this older stuff that we don’t have anything to do with.” And so he just saw a niche and just decided to be the one to fill it. And I just get to tag along for the ride which is a pretty neat thing. ZT: That is pretty neat. So, how long has it been around and when did you get started with it? BF: Yeah, so Vintage Sports has just been around since early this spring officially as its own start-up. So, it is a start-up. And that’s because he sold out of his last company and pretty much got bored and he’s just a creative guy and wanted to go forward and do something new. And I actually got connected through Betsy Holloway, the VP of Marketing here at Samford. Bernard ran into her at breakfast and she was like, “Hey, I have a guy I think you might like.” And I had coffee with him and during that first coffee conversation - the first time I met him - he offered me the job. ZT: Man, what an awesome opportunity. I just love that an organization like that exists. There is so much of a culture that surrounds sports and there is definitely a market out there for Vintage Sports gear. So, if any of our listeners just happen to want to go out and buy some gear, how would they do it? Where would they go? BF: Yeah, so we are still launching. So, we are almost done with our website, but here this summer you can go to literally: “vintagesports.com.” And our website will be up and you can go through and see if there is something that you like. ZT: Thank you so much for coming on Brock and we really appreciate you for telling us - you know I’m new to the idea of Vintage Sports and I’m sure everyone listening to that idea as well. So, thanks so much for telling us all about it and I really appreciate you coming out. BF: No problem, thanks for having me out. --- Thank you for listening to Statistically Speaking. This podcast was created and produced by Zach Taunton and Grant Gardner. To learn more about the Samford University Center for Sports Analytics, and download more episodes of the podcast, visit our webpage at samford.edu/sports-analytics and follow us on Twitter @SamfordSACenter.