Team Boxing League CEO Kevin Cassidy (03-26-26)

0:00chase a big Joe one or two five the game on this Thursday were live at circus sports at the meant at Kentucky Downs. And if you're looking for some cool things to do around our city, check out the team boxing league coming to be this full auditorium on April 17th as the Nashville smash take on the Phoenix Fury. It's a different concept with boxing and to talk more about that we bring in the CEO and commissioner Kevin Cassidy who's online with us. Kevin, how are you doing? How are you? We're doing glad to be talking to you. Yeah, we're doing well. We're excited to be talking a little boxing. This is a really cool concept that if our listeners aren't familiar, how would you best describe it as you basically have one round of three minutes if you're a boxer. It's different boxers in different rounds. But tell us a little more about it. Sure. So it's basically the tiktok of boxing. It takes traditional boxing honoring the traditional concept in boxing and and it's judged the exact same way a regular

1:06boxing match is judged. The difference is it's one so each way class has a fighter that comes in the ring fights one three minute round under the traditional boxing rules scored the same way 10 9 10 8 10 7 and 10 6 for knockout. So you have we have 12 teams in 12 cities all around the country 16 fighters 12 male and 4 female in the different way classes 26 weeks is our season 56 head to head matches of three minute rounds and non-stop action. So because there's only three minutes and it's a one round fight. What happens is they have 30 to 45 seconds to figure out their opponent versus a regular you know 12-mout round match. You know you have rounds that you're figuring out your opponent. There's no there's no time to dance around. They have to get right to it which is what creates the action. Well and you talked about keeping the tradition of

2:10boxing. I mean we've seen some of these long fights that can kind of drag on. I mean this you're getting as you said you're getting the action right there because you don't have time as a fighter to mess around. Exactly so so you know you know it's it's gotten over the years everybody's attention span is much shorter including my own like I'm a big baseball fan and and you know I take people that are younger than me to games with me and they're you know they're looking at their phone and they're not watching the game like you used to do as much. Now they're trying to do things with baseball. Well this is the same thing. We came up with this concept. We believe it's the most exciting new thing in boxing and you know we're at 12 teams and 12 cities this year but we're going to 20 teams and 96 events next year. That's good. You know it's taking off. That is that is going to be fantastic and tomorrow you're in Atlanta as

3:11the Nashville smash will take on the Atlanta attack at center stage but as we mentioned April 17th you'll be here at the municipal auditorium and you can find out more details and get your tickets at teamboxingleague.com. Kevin I want to say one of the great things I'm looking right now thank you for having a website that's perfect thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Right I mean I land on your website and everything and Chase is asking these questions and you're explaining it's all right here so I'm telling you that to me that you you won the first round on that one Kevin because the website is great teamboxingleague.com but I tell you and folks don't know this boxing is still very popular and I don't think people realize that right. It's super popular and you see it when you see these giant events that like Netflix puts on they're fantastic but you know the main card because of the superstars that they have on there is great but then you have all of this undercard that nobody's willing to watch like they used to be. That's why you saw

4:12like show box and things spell off over time because the viewerships just not there because people are looking for what is the most exciting short form format now. I think we've addressed that but we've also honored the traditional boxing concept and tradition. Oh I think it's great and I like how it explains how a match works like you were telling me the launch rounds in middle rounds then the money rounds I mean it's just I mean you got those money rounds if it's tied eight to eight or something I mean you got to be on the edge of your seat for this. Exactly it is so exciting that when somebody comes to our events they're just they're they're they're they're just they're just hooked. Now you know we we had some great success on television and we continue to last year we ended up with 12 million viewers which is you know huge for a you know we were in our third season now we're hit. We just started our fourth

5:12season with three matches this past weekend which were phenomenal. Also I wanted to say you know in Nashville is debuting some like two young amateur standouts are coming up for Nashville at 147 just here Riley and Khalil Walden and this is going to be a really interesting to see them match up with Atlanta so that's going to be great to watch. I think it's very cool. What was the genesis for all this? How did this all come about? So myself and and a friend saw that there was you know a slowdown and what was happening in boxing were huge boxing fans and we kind of just getched out something. At first we were looking at three, four rounds and all different kinds of concepts. We landed on this we tested it out at Mohegan Sun, Casino and Connecticut with 16s and

6:1230 around 27 matches the first year and we didn't we weren't trying to get people we were trying to test the concept so we had it in one of the event centers there and people just started floating in from the Casino and that's it just that was the genesis and then you know we started to you know really refine the rules and then you know we put together the lead based on really the NFL concept of the NFL which each team will have individual owners there there have been a few teams that have sold and the league is still managing all the teams through season five and we're we just open season four. Kevin who came up with the names for the teams because I got to tell you whoever did you need to give them a race. These names are great. Mostly one of my buddy came up with all the names so far but yeah they're great names. Nashville smash I mean what a great name and you have a great coach there Fred Duet. I don't know if you guys have had a chance

7:15to interview him or talk to him yet but he's a great coach with incredible team spirit. He's like got all this team training together each together they you know they get together at least once a week to have a team meeting and you'll see there's a lot of team spirit so boxing's always been a lonely sport now you have a lonely sport where you have the the person's in the ring alone fighting but they have their teammates cheering for them when they're going in and when they're in the ring and when they're coming out. Kevin I'm curious of the conditioning because when you condition for a 12 round fight I have to imagine that's going to be different now there's you know you're doing this more often with with the team concept and all of that but how does this change the conditioning for the fighters? Well it's it's a it's a real changing concept in other words you're you're not going you know you don't need the stamina for the 12 rounds but what you need to do is you need to get the business right away. So it's a difference so I'll give

8:16you an example of something that happened. The Canelo Crawford fight there was the undercard writer underneath it was Raco Santana which was one of our fighters that fought for the Phoenix jury last year and he was supposedly outmatched and it was it was looked at as he was the underdog he came out and knocked the guy out in the first round and it's because you know when he attributed it immediately to his training with team boxing league that you know he would have never had the chance to to beat the guy he beat because he just came out and went right to fighting there was no the other guy was still trying to figure him out and he got beat badly fast. Well Kevin we're excited about this and they're going to have a few events in Nashville starting April 17th this is a really cool concept and I think it's going to be fun for people to go check out so thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you very much appreciate it guys look forward to seeing you in Nashville. Absolutely. Kevin

9:17Cassidy is with us the CEO and commissioner of team boxing league you can check it out at teamboxingleague.com and I agree with you Joe the team names are pretty fun. I'm all in now the Boston butchers Philadelphia smoke the Miami assassins the Nashville smash I'm telling you man so many times I'll go to a website I was like what is that this is laid out perfectly this is exciting yeah here in Nashville okay I like I learned something new today. I agree we got some answers on our question of the day at 615-737-1025 which is we had Billy Gardell on from Mike and Molly earlier and he was very great it was a great interview great interview great time we want to know what you we want to know what you think is your favorite sitcom of all time from the 50-60-70 it doesn't matter what it is we take the favorite sitcom is of all time I chase his friends I got Sanford and son Dr. Crane we're going to give you a welcome back coder buddy yeah

10:17it's perfect I like that well you know I have taken him in a fight I don't know you might well done yes we'll get to some of those answers next live from circus sports in Kentucky here on 1-0-2-5 the game