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Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Business of Sports show where we

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Speaker 1: explore the big money issues in the world of sports.

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Speaker 1: I'm Scarlett Folk. Next in Sports is a Bloomberg Originals

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Speaker 1: program that explores new sports as well as innovations and

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Speaker 1: existing pastimes, really illustrating what's happening around the corner and

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Speaker 1: across the globe. And this week Next in Sports hosts

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Speaker 1: that Jason Kelly Vanessa Perdomo go out and explore the

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Speaker 1: interesting world of kabati. It's a sport that originated in

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Speaker 1: India and for now is still big in India, but

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Speaker 1: is trying to get bigger.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't I don't even know where to begin

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Speaker 2: on this one, because it was our biggest adventure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, definitely overseas travel traveled to album.

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Speaker 2: To Mumbai and into its outskirts to you know, play

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Speaker 2: and learn about kabati, which was invented roughly four thousand

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Speaker 2: years ago. The Buddha reportedly played kabati, but many of

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Speaker 2: us had never heard of it.

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Speaker 4: It was brought to us by our.

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Speaker 2: Terrific producer, Robin Fall, who's based in Hong Kong, who's

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Speaker 2: done a lot of work in India and who is

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Speaker 2: with us there.

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Speaker 4: Uh, it's wild. How would you describe it?

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Speaker 3: It is a mix between tag, red rover and wrestling.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and like straight up.

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Speaker 3: Like literally all three of those things combined. And when

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Speaker 3: we went to see the you know pros in training

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Speaker 3: or you know an academy where pros are training, the

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Speaker 3: guy who runs it basically said that we do these

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Speaker 3: sorts of movements specifically for wrestling. We do these sorts

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Speaker 3: of movements specifically for tag, you know, And I think

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Speaker 3: it's it's so fun.

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Speaker 1: Is it a combat sport?

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Speaker 4: No, it's full contact.

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Speaker 2: I mean it's full contact combat.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's not not combat.

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Speaker 2: I mean you're basically you're trying to tag, tag or

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Speaker 2: be tag. You're tried to tag or evade. And but

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Speaker 2: also you can like just get tackled.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And the second, you know, the raider crosses a certain

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Speaker 3: line or tag someone on the other team, that team

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Speaker 3: can just absolutely destroy them. You know they can. They

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Speaker 3: tackle you to the ground, they push you out of bounce,

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Speaker 3: they do you will do anything for you to not

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Speaker 3: get back over the line.

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Speaker 1: The pictures, I have to say, were mesmerizing and I

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Speaker 1: just couldn't figure out what was going on. Some of

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Speaker 1: the times. And I think that's part of it too,

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Speaker 1: because you guys talk about in the video how uh

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Speaker 1: the sponsors of this league in India have changed the

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Speaker 1: rules a couple of times in order to attract a

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Speaker 1: TV audience to make it more broadcastable, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's funny too.

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Speaker 2: I mean there are echoes definitely of the the tag

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Speaker 2: episode that we did earlier in the season, in the

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Speaker 2: sense that if you you know, grow up in the subcontinent,

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Speaker 2: like you know this sport because and especially if you

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Speaker 2: grew up in sort of rural areas, you grew up

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Speaker 2: playing it. Everybody plays it. I mean, it's just like

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Speaker 2: you do it. In fact, we went to a park

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Speaker 2: and played with some kids, which is all other stories.

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Speaker 3: Right, well, I want.

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Speaker 1: There's a theme here every time you guys go on

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Speaker 1: do some Vanessa does really well.

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Speaker 3: Wow, Well all right, so all get into them in

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Speaker 3: a second. But the whole the whole interesting thing with

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Speaker 3: with Tagg, like Jason was alluding to, it's a four

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Speaker 3: thousand years old sport, so it's hard to gamify it

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Speaker 3: so that everybody is clear on the exact same rules

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Speaker 3: because you just play it in the backyard. You know,

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Speaker 3: when you play certain things, like even even when you

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Speaker 3: play like Uno or cards, people have their own specific.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, that's a you know, yeah.

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Speaker 3: So everybody has house rules, so they had to make

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Speaker 3: sure they can gamify it in a way that everybody

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Speaker 3: can kind of understood that these are the rules for

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Speaker 3: professional Kubuddy.

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Speaker 2: But like what we've seen in the United States, a

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Speaker 2: lot is definitely true there, which is I mean, it's

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Speaker 2: an incredible show. I mean when you watch it on television,

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Speaker 2: it's like it's the lights and the colors and you know,

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Speaker 2: these these huge live audiences and you've got like announcers

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Speaker 2: Bollywood stars and announcers and all of this and a

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Speaker 2: lot of money. Is super compelling, and so the production

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Speaker 2: values are really off the charts, and so it's it's

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Speaker 2: amazing to sort of see the evolution of it, especially

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Speaker 2: because when we went to play with these kids who

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Speaker 2: who were sort of being taught to play, like we're

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Speaker 2: literally in a dirt patch in a public park, like,

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe an hour outside of Mumbai, like in

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Speaker 2: the sort of like exerbs as it were.

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Speaker 4: And yes, Vanessa was very good.

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Speaker 2: We were playing against each other and let let me,

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Speaker 2: let me just boil this down. This is my favorite

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Speaker 2: story of maybe the entire series, which is Vanessa was

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Speaker 2: a celebrity like among this this crew. And so when

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Speaker 2: we were playing, you know, we were playing against each other.

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Speaker 2: We were each on a team of girls, young girls.

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Speaker 2: So when each of us would be the raider, the

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Speaker 2: the kids who are watching, the boys who were watching,

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Speaker 2: would be chanting. And so they obviously the Vanessa being

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Speaker 2: the celebrity is they would like.

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Speaker 4: Every time.

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Speaker 2: And then they hadn't bothered to learn my name, and

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Speaker 2: so when I was the raider, they would just chant sir, sir, sir.

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Speaker 2: And and then when the game was that when we

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Speaker 2: interviewed one of the one of the players and we

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Speaker 2: asked her how we did, and she essentially turned a

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Speaker 2: Vus was like, you were very good.

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Speaker 4: She turned me and she's like, mmmm, not so much

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Speaker 4: so much.

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Speaker 3: But you know, it's like the funny thing that when

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Speaker 3: me and Jason are playing with these little girls were

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Speaker 3: like ten years old, you know, And like we said,

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Speaker 3: it's a very physical sport. So Jason's not going to

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Speaker 3: be over here like pushing around little girls. He didn't

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Speaker 3: do that. So just so everyone's here, he was not

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Speaker 3: you know, but so they were trying their hards to

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Speaker 3: push him out and they did. But me, being the

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Speaker 3: athlete and you know, competitor, competitor and woman that I am,

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Speaker 3: I'm not not letting these little girls push me around.

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Speaker 3: So I literally made a move once where they all

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Speaker 3: tried to tag me and I still made it back

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Speaker 3: to the other side. And when you get tagged and

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Speaker 3: if you touch someone and you get back to the

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Speaker 3: other side, everyone you touched is out.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So I literally took out the whole team and like

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Speaker 3: one star mode there. But I mean like half my age,

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Speaker 3: like actually half my size, which is hard. Yeah, so

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Speaker 3: they thought I was so incredible.

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Speaker 2: Meanwhile, like I'm playing and I'm like trying to do

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Speaker 2: my kind of my best and they're taunting me. They're

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Speaker 2: like literally taunting.

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Speaker 3: Come on, let's come on, try harder.

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Speaker 1: Come on, sir, we need the footage the back.

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Speaker 4: It's fantastic. It's in Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Okay. So the other thing that was fascinating about this,

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Speaker 1: because you spoke with a number of people about Kabati

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Speaker 1: is the Professional League of Kabadi is bankrolled by the

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Speaker 1: chairman of Mahindra Mahindra, which is a huge conglomerate in India

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Speaker 1: and it's run by his brother in law, so it

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Speaker 1: is run by titans of India's industry and owned by

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Speaker 1: titans ye India's industry.

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Speaker 2: I mean it's it's actually hard to overstate like how

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Speaker 2: important a non Mahindra is, like not just in India

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Speaker 2: but globally. I mean he's, you know, in the Davos crowd.

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Speaker 2: I mean, he runs, as you say, like a massive conglomerate.

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Speaker 2: They have you know, agricultural equipment, they have a car company,

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Speaker 2: they have an IT company, they have all sorts of

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Speaker 2: these holdings. And you know, I sat down with him

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Speaker 2: for for quite some time, spent some time with him,

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Speaker 2: and you know, he essentially identified a couple of really

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Speaker 2: important themes to this. I mean one is there was

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Speaker 2: a business opportunity, you know, this was a sport that

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Speaker 2: people were a big fan of, you know, to be

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Speaker 2: able to professionalize it put it on TV. I think

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Speaker 2: the other really interesting thing to me and and Venison

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Speaker 2: and I talked a lot about this when we were there,

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Speaker 2: was this is a this is a sport that is

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Speaker 2: historically Indian and so there's a there's a huge amount

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Speaker 2: amount of national pride in it because the number one

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Speaker 2: sport by far and is cricket, and you know, even

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Speaker 2: that's an import, that's probably that's that's an import. It's

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Speaker 2: literally a colonial you know import. And so there's this

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Speaker 2: element of it that like this is ours from an

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Speaker 2: Indian perspective, and so there's a huge amount of national pride.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the reasons you do

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Speaker 2: see like the Bollywood actors investing in showing up and

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Speaker 2: and so you know, talking with an nond about that

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Speaker 2: and thinking, you know, as we do at Bloomberg about

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Speaker 2: sort of the macroeconomics of this.

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Speaker 4: You know, it's a.

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Speaker 2: Fascinating moment for India on the world stage. You know,

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister Mody was just here in the United States

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Speaker 2: for a big state dinner and a meeting with President Biden,

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Speaker 2: and so that I was I was really fascinated by

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Speaker 2: that and just sort of being in Mumbai and kind

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Speaker 2: of seeing that whole dynamic applay.

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Speaker 1: And Vanessa you talked to a number of players, and

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Speaker 1: what also interested me is how they said that this

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Speaker 1: was a way for them to get a stable government

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Speaker 1: job too. I mean, they weren't going into this for

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Speaker 1: riches and fame they were getting. They were going into

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Speaker 1: the sport in order to have a career down the road.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 3: There's like a very interesting point to that where Kabadi

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Speaker 3: they have state teams and you know, federal teams that

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Speaker 3: the agencies, you know, their police and whoever in their

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Speaker 3: government has five percent of their jobs solely for people

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Speaker 3: who are very very good at this sport, you know,

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Speaker 3: so they can play on their teams and whatever. But

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Speaker 3: it's also a way out because, like we said, this

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Speaker 3: like started in rural areas. It's like comparing it to cricket.

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Speaker 3: The reason it's so popular is because you don't need

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Speaker 3: any equipment to play. You literally don't need anything except

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Speaker 3: for the floor, like, so it is very popular. So

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Speaker 3: for these kids who live in rural areas, they see

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Speaker 3: these jobs as a way out to go become policemen,

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Speaker 3: to go you know, have an actual stable job outside

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Speaker 3: of their little village. So one of the professionals I

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Speaker 3: talked to, so he said, that's how my brother got out.

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Speaker 3: So I was going to do exactly that, but it

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Speaker 3: just so happened the professional league had started right when

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Speaker 3: he was getting out, and he you know, they were like, well,

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Speaker 3: you're actually really good at this. Now you can become

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Speaker 3: a professional. And he said, yeah, it wasn't even a

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Speaker 3: thought to him, but now he's so thankful because their

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Speaker 3: team puts them up in an apartment. They live with

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Speaker 3: other players on the team, and they have, you know,

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Speaker 3: means now to support themselves.

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Speaker 2: And there has been this interesting trajectory where because it's

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Speaker 2: on television and because so many people watch it, and

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Speaker 2: you know, it's sort of the law of big numbers,

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Speaker 2: like a lot of people are going to see you,

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Speaker 2: and you know, these players are now like getting stopped

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Speaker 2: in airports. I mean, the cebeties, they are their celebrities

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Speaker 2: in their own right because sort of like the NBA,

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Speaker 2: I hadn't really thought about this, so we're just sorry

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Speaker 2: about it now, but sort of like the NBA, like

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Speaker 2: there's no equipment, they're not under helmets like you see people.

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Speaker 4: You see them up close in personal. You see their

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Speaker 4: like physical prows. I mean. And when we went and

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Speaker 4: saw the.

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Speaker 2: The the academy, yeah, and the professionals and trading, I

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Speaker 2: mean these are like dudes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they like they were only at the academy, they

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Speaker 3: were eighteen to twenty two or so, but they were

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Speaker 3: very very athletically built, like yeah, they were clearly in

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Speaker 3: the gym. And it's one of those things where when

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Speaker 3: you're around NFL players, you know, you're around an NFL

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Speaker 3: player and they're not necessarily tall like NBA players. You know,

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Speaker 3: you're around for the sport. They're built for it. So

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Speaker 3: these players have, you know, massively like thick legs, like

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Speaker 3: they're just so strong, so strong.

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Speaker 2: This strong core and everything right, yes, yes, yeah, because

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Speaker 2: and they have to be able to I mean, and

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Speaker 2: you know, and you have some specialization going on. You know,

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Speaker 2: if you're an especially good raider, like you're probably like

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Speaker 2: a little smaller but also like really strong to be

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Speaker 2: able to, you know, elude somebody's grip. You got to

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Speaker 2: be But I mean they were like jumping and flipping

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Speaker 2: and I mean it was crazy. But you know if

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Speaker 2: you're defending, like you've got to be able to like

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Speaker 2: take a dude down.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: It's like the half of them are built like rugby

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Speaker 3: players and then half of them are built like strikers, yeah,

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Speaker 3: football stakers.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it was it was really it was really interesting.

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Speaker 1: So this is huge in India and what now the

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Speaker 1: number two sport after cricket. Does it have any kind

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Speaker 1: of presence outside of India.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and I think it's the number one sport in Bangladesh.

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Speaker 3: Actually is the their national sport now in Bangladesh. So

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Speaker 3: in South Asia it's starting to get a lot of traction,

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Speaker 3: but outside of that not so much. But you know,

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Speaker 3: it's one of those things where in this series, everyone

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Speaker 3: we talked to is their goals the Olympics one day.

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Speaker 1: So I think that that's to other countries have potentially

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Speaker 1: have kabati teams. I mean Bangladesh and India, yes, but.

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Speaker 2: Whose Yes, I mean it's big and Iran and there

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Speaker 2: are some Asian countries that that are coming on alongside

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Speaker 2: of it.

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Speaker 4: There it was in the Asian Games.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's in the Asian Games, okay.

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Speaker 4: And so it is. It is building. One thing that

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Speaker 4: we have not talked about.

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Speaker 2: I just realized because it's been going through my mind

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Speaker 2: is a very important thing about this sport is that

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Speaker 2: when you are raiding, so when you are trying to

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Speaker 2: like tag everybody, you have to be saying.

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Speaker 4: Kabati, kabati, kabadi, kabati kabati the entire time.

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Speaker 1: Yes, what happens if you don't you're out.

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Speaker 4: You're out.

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Speaker 1: Why do you have to be saying this?

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Speaker 3: I think it's some sort of added.

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Speaker 2: It's basically to keep your breath so that like and

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Speaker 2: so the raids are only thirty seconds, right, oh and

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Speaker 2: so but basically if you stop chanting. So it's funny

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Speaker 2: because anybody, I mean, this is one of the funny

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Speaker 2: sort of like side effects of this is that anybody

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Speaker 2: I've talked about in the United States who is either

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Speaker 2: you know, Indian, or has somehow been exposed to the sport,

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Speaker 2: the first thing they do is say comboutic about combotic

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Speaker 2: comboutic commodity.

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Speaker 1: It produces the chances of, you know, chirping.

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Speaker 4: And while.

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Speaker 3: I think that it almost feels like an added punishment, it.

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Speaker 2: Totally is because you can't like you can't breathe. You

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Speaker 2: can't breathe because you're saying about comboutic commoutic commodity, and

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Speaker 2: so it makes it that much more challenge more that

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Speaker 2: much more challenging. And it is one of these things

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Speaker 2: where I sort of heard it and I was like,

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Speaker 2: is that really true?

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Speaker 4: And then like fair enough.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, It's like one of those things when when I

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Speaker 3: tried and I tried and I joined in with the academy.

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Speaker 3: I was forgetting it, So then that's one you can't

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Speaker 3: forget it. You have to know all the rules. And

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Speaker 3: also I was out of breath like immediately, right right right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: We do have some good footage in the documentary of

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Speaker 2: me essentially interviewing VP after she was like, it was hard,

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Speaker 2: it was really hard, but she was she was a

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Speaker 2: gamer as usual as usual.

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Speaker 1: It's a great episode. And how long were you guys

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Speaker 1: in India?

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Speaker 4: Got a week?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: It was intense, It was really It was really really interesting,

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Speaker 2: and especially I think to explore something that is so

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Speaker 2: like woven into the culture of the place. You know,

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Speaker 2: anybody we talked to there was fascinated by the idea that,

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Speaker 2: you know, we weren't coming to do something about cricket

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Speaker 2: or you know, a big company.

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Speaker 4: It was like COMBITI there what?

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Speaker 3: So I think that the cool thing about it is

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Speaker 3: this is one of those episodes where we actually got

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Speaker 3: to see that all the different levels. You know, when

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Speaker 3: you get to see it on the dirt, and you

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Speaker 3: get to see with these kids who aren't wearing any

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Speaker 3: choose and and then you see a growing to the training,

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Speaker 3: and then you see the pros, and you see how

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Speaker 3: far it came from where.

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Speaker 4: It started in the Royals, and how hard it is

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Speaker 4: and at the level.

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Speaker 3: And again, one of those things we keep talking about

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Speaker 3: is you want to watch people do things you can't do,

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Speaker 3: and this is one of those.

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Speaker 1: Kabod kbodikabodi comodity. All right, Jason Kelley and Vanessa Perdomo,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much. They are, of course, the host

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Speaker 1: of Next and Sports, which is streaming on Bloomberg dot Com.

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Speaker 1: It also premieres Wednesday's new episodes on Bloomberg Television at

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Speaker 1: ten pm Eastern. You can find it on Bloomberg dot

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Speaker 1: com on YouTube, where you can also find previous episodes.