SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hustlers, on today's episode of the Trump to Hustle podcast, we're joined by one of San Antonio's most recognizable personalities. What started as showing up to Spurs game in costume turned into a personal brand that's been over a decade in the making. In this episode, we dive into how the character was born, the highs and lows of building a brand, the criticism and setbacks he had to overcome, and how he turned his passion for the Spurs into a real business. If you ever wonder what it takes to build a personal brand from the ground up, you won't want to miss this one. Today's episode, Spurs Jesus. Welcome to another episode of Perfect the Hustle Podcast for real estate investors and entrepreneurship stories, strategies, and mindset behind her hustle. I'm Michael Giannis, aka Mr. Hustle to my right. Let's go. And you guys notice we're doing something a little different today. We got the Spurs jerseys on, man, and I am honored, Mr. Spurs Jesus, to have you in the building to be part of this podcast, man. Thank you for being here, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Hey man, this is my favorite thing to do. So I'm glad you know you gave me the opportunity to come hang out.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

I will tell you, man. I got a lot of questions for you. I got a lot of questions on the Spurs Jesus, man, and how it came about. But before we get started, I always start off the same way, man. Hustle, right? My hustle is real estate wholesaling, real estate flipping houses, and real estate subsidy to by taking over people's payments. When someone thinks of Spurs Jesus, what is Spurs Jesus hustle?

SPEAKER_00 1:23

That's a good question. I was thinking about that. What would be my hustle? Like what would some or what would somebody say if you were to ask like the audience, like what's Spurs Jesus' hustle? I mean, my hustle is to, you know, obviously spread Spurs love around the world as much as I possibly can and leave my mark on the world as positively as I can. I don't know if you would call that a hustle, but that's my mission. I mean, uh helping helping the Spurs get to get to the six and move on to seven, I think, is there. But really, I mean, I think if I had to say what's my hustle, uh, I mean, I'm I'm pretty good at marketing. So I would say that that's that's that.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

So marketing. So this is yeah, this is gonna be a great podcast, man. Obviously, I'm a Spurs fan, and I'm glad you're on this uh podcast. And of course, this is a business podcast, right? So everyone knows Spurs, man. You're like a brand, man, especially in San Antonio. So I want to know the brand. I want to know the business behind a brand. And we're gonna deep dive into that a little bit because someone like yourself, uh, I think of as a content creator, if you will. You're an image, you're a brand, and people gotta understand the hard work it takes to take that image and brand and turn it into a business, man. And that's the whole thing of Trump the hustle, man. So again, let's let's get started, man. Before we do this, I want to kind of picture 2014. All right, I think that's kind of when the moment went viral. But you've been doing this for a little more than a decade.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah, a little more than a decade. 16 years.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

16 years. Well, more too. Longer than a decade. A little longer than a decade. So for 16 years, this dude shows up in a Spurs Jesus costume and gets the attention. I want to take it back, man. Like, how did this happen? What's the origin story? For the a lot of people don't know. Everyone sees you, especially during the playoffs. Everyone knows Spurs Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

But what's the origin? What's the story? Like, how did this happen?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

You know, uh, there's probably something wrong with me. That's that's probably how it happened. No, I mean, I've been a diehard Spurs fan my whole life, just like every other San Antonian. Um, you know, I grown grew up here my whole life, and so fell in love early on as a kid. Um, you know, we had one of the best players ever, David Robinson, and you know, David Robinson back in his prime when we were all kids, looked like a freaking superhero, you know. So uh I've been a I've been a fan forever. And so uh, you know, I moved downtown back in early, I guess it was like 2005, 2006. I went basically in the in that year, I was a personal trainer by day. That was my hustle personal trainer by day. I was a bartender by night. I didn't really have an idea for uh a Halloween costume that year. I've always been super creative and I would make these really elaborate, creative uh Halloween costumes. The year before I won a costume contest, um, I made a costume out of like uh it there was a movie called The Immortals. Do you remember the movie The Immortals? There was like these Greek gods, they all like dressed in like these really elaborate gold costumes. It was kind of filmed the same way like uh 300 was filmed, like very cinematic, you know. Anyways, so I was one of the gods from the Immortals. I won the contest. So the next year I didn't really have a Halloween costume idea. And I went to work one day as you know at my personal training job. Uh, and I used to just buzz my my beard down to like a five o'clock shadow when I would go to work, you know. I didn't I just hated shaving, right? And so, anyways, I went to work one day. I had a I hadn't buzzed it down recently, so it was a little bit longer than it normally was. And I went into work and my trainer buddies, you know, we were all young in our early 20s and you know, immature and would like, you know, raz each other all the time. And so I walk into work and one of my trainer buddies was like, dude, you're looking pretty rough, like the beard. And someone's like, You kind of look like a bum. And someone was like, You kind of look like Jesus, right? And so it was right around Halloween time. I didn't have an idea for a costume, so I was like, you know what, I'll be Jesus for Halloween. That'll give me a good reason to let my beard keep growing. That was also back when the whole no-shave November thing had just like started, you know, catching on. And so I was like, that's a great excuse for me to grow my beard out for like two months straight. So, anyways, I made a Halloween costume. I went around, it was a Saturday night, I went around downtown as Jesus to all my favorite places. Everybody loved it. This is kind of the beginning of when people started taking selfies. Um, took a lot of selfies, it was a it was a a good Halloween, it was a good time, right? Uh the very next day was NFL Sunday. Me and my older brother both are diehard Spurs fans, like I mentioned, and diehard Cowboys fans, unfortunately. Uh, and so I went to his Dallas Cowboys barbecue that he had at his house with his buddies the next day. But just to prank him and all of his friends who've known me since I was a kid, I showed up still dressed like Jesus to his barbecue. But like I mentioned, I was still in my early 20s, so I didn't think far enough ahead to bring a change of clothes. So the whole barbecue, I'm sitting there, you know, dressed like Jesus, you know, and my brother opens the door, sees me there, he cracks up laughing, you know, and and so every um now I'm sitting there watching the game. Uh it's like halftime. We've all had some beer and barbecue, you know, and I would look over, and it's anytime like this, anytime I'd make eye contact with somebody, everybody was just staring at me, right? And like when I'd make eye contact, they'd crack up laughing like that, you know. It's very hard not to stare.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

I'm gonna tell you, it's super hard not to stare.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Thanks. I'm married. Uh but my uh so my brother was like, uh, dude, it's tripping me out. Like you really look like Jesus. And so back at the time, like I mentioned, I was a personal trainer. He was also a personal trainer, same company. It was called Spectrum, which is now Gold's in San Antonio. Um, we worked for different locations, though, right? And so, but this is 2007, right? Spurs won their fourth championship in 2007. That was the height of our big three. We had just become a dynasty, Tim, Tony Manu, we had pop. Um, great time to be a Spurs fan. Well, a lot of our the gym we worked at for was like a higher-end gym. So we had a lot of our client, you know, clients, they were seasoned ticket holders, right? And so if the client couldn't make it to a Spurs or couldn't make it to a workout session, or if they were just grateful we helped them reach their goals or whatever, they would give us their tickets to the games a lot. And so if my brother had tickets to the game, he would take me. If I had tickets, I'd take him. And so that's why he said you should go to a Spurs game like that sometime. And I was like, Yeah, I should hold a sign that says Jesus loves the Spurs and maybe they'll put me on Sports Center. So, like, quintessential, like bro moment, you know. I was just like, Yeah, I want my picture on Sports Center with an iconic logo at the bottom, and then have it framed and put in them. We were talking about man caves earlier. One day have my man cave like look at me on Sports Center at a Spurs game and show my kids, like, you know, if you ever have a crazy idea, as long as it's not too crazy, like you know, don't be afraid to make that your hustle or go go chase a dream or something like that. So, anyways, that was kind of the idea. The other idea was if Jesus was a fan of any sports team, of any sport, of any league, it probably would be a fan of the Spurs because they were, you know, just a stand-up team, good morals, all that, you know. Um so that's where the idea was kind of born. I kept my costume in a storage container after that under my bed for three years. And in 2010, I was still a personal trainer. I was still living downtown. Um, and I went to work one day. One of my clients calls me up and he's like, hey man, I triple booked myself. Uh I have a board meeting, I have a personal training session with you in a Spurs game all at 7:30. And if you know, he was the owner of the company. Remember this show, Pimp My Ride?

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

So he owned a company in San Antonio that was like Pimp My Ride of private jets. So they would like trick out private jets for billionaires and stuff like that. So his job was pretty important. So he was like, I can't get out of my board meeting, sort of make it up to you for canceling the session. You can have my tickets to the Spurs game. By the way, they're courtside. And I was like a you know, jaw on the floor. You know, growing up, I never I didn't come from money or anything. I never thought I would ever sit courtside at a game or even that close. So um then a light bulb went off in my head and I was like, oh, this is my moment with the Jesus thing, right? And so I called him back and I was like, hey man, you know, they're your they're your company seats. I wouldn't want to, you know, do this without asking for your blessing, you know, pun intended on that. And uh and he was like, you know, I told him this is what I what I had wanted to do, and he was like, you know, I eff and love it. He had his country accent, but he was like, I love it. He's like, go for it, man, right? So so I did it and I went to the game. Um I was super shy before that, believe it or not. So I like I'm a totally different person now. Um, but so I was extremely nervous when I went to the game, uh, but sat courtside. This is back when they had paper tickets. Uh so I you know, walking down to the court, uh, everybody, you know, every usher security guard made sure to stop me and check my ticket, but I had the ticket. So I'm walking down the the steps to courtside, right? And I get about five rows down from the floor, uh, and all the lights go off in the building. And I'm thinking that it's because they're about to do the player announcements and stuff like that, right? But as soon as I step on the hardwood on the court, boom, they shine a spotlight right on me. No way. Right? Yeah, and I'm like frozen because like I said, I was kind of shy, so I was like super nervous. I was in flip-flops, I'm trying to go down the, you know, trying to make it trying to make sure I didn't fall and face plant in front of make sports center for the wrong reason, you know. Uh but so, anyways, uh, they shine a spotlight on me and the coyote comes running up, uh slides on his knees and gets down and kisses my feet in front of like everybody, right? Really? And I'm just like frozen. My my I have a picture of me and I look like white as a ghost, like I'm about to like pass out at that moment, which I'm sure I probably was. But anyways, it was a good time. Uh it made it small scale viral in San Antonio. When all you know went on every news station, every radio station, every magazine, every in a newspaper, all that. Uh, but it didn't make it a sports center. That was the goal, right? And so uh to reach to try to reach my goal, you know, I figured maybe if I made it a soul made a social media page, SportsCenter would find out about me faster. So I went to go create a Facebook page because Instagram didn't exist yet. And you can't just be Jesus on Facebook, you have to have a first and a last name. So I was like, oh, if I can't just be Jesus, I guess I'll be Spurs Jesus, right? So that's how I got the name Spurs Jesus. Fast forward a little bit, that same client that gave me the tickets to go sit courtside that one time, he kept giving me his tickets. He was going through some some you know legal things with his with his company and really didn't have the time to go to the game. So he kept giving me my the courtside seats to try to reach my goal, which I'm super thankful of. That was amazing, right? Uh and so when I would go to the games, people would want to take selfies with me, and you know, they would start treating me like a street performer and want to buy me a beer or buy me like a taco or food or something like that, or give me money to take a picture with them. But this is also the time the WWJD, what would Jesus do bracelets were super popular, you know? And so in my head, you know, I was always thinking, well, I want to be respectful of the character I'm portraying, you know. I mean, not not being a Bible dumper and all that, but just being respectful of what I was doing, right? And I was like, Jesus wouldn't take a beer or take your money, just tag me in your photo on Facebook, and people would say, Well, what do I tag you as? And I would tell them it's Spurs Jesus on Facebook. So I didn't even realize by by doing that, what I was doing was I was branding myself. And I didn't, so I accidentally branded myself as Spurs Jesus. I never had the plan of becoming Spurs Jesus. I just wanted to get a picture of me dressed this way on Sports Center holding a sign that says Jesus loves the Spurs. But by taking those pictures and telling people to tag me, I by saying Spurs Jesus over and over and over, people and the fans went from rather than being like, hey, look, there's a guy dressed like Jesus sitting there to other fans being like, no, that's not just some guy dressed like Jesus, that's Spurs Jesus, right? And so it became a thing and then caught on. And then uh before I could kind of say, okay, I'm done with this, I started getting invites to do a lot of cool things like this, but also things that you know made an impact in the community, like you know, hosting um 5K runs, charity 5k runs, charity events, pet adoption events, all these different things, right? And so I realized that you know I kind of had a pretty good platform to also do something that outside of the Spurs and the team uh you know made an impact in our community directly. So I kept doing it, and then 16 years fly by and a lot of many other things, which I'm sure you'll ask me about in this podcast. But that's the origin. That's the origin, man.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

That's from day one to here.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

That's that's I didn't know it's such a long journey. Uh I thought it was like just a media blow up in 2014. I didn't realize it was a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

No, 2014, of course, you know, since we were in the finals, right? Uh, you know, that definitely um was a catalyst, you know, um, to to maybe to grow the brand a lot. There's been a lot of those moments um, you know, that were catalysts in the in the journey where you can say, okay, definitely this, you know, this was a um you know a moment, a moment, uh, a growth moment for sure. So that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

That's it, same thing in business, right? And in this business, I won't no one sees the hard work that you pushed before and before now. It's crazy how it came from a Halloween costume to where you're at today. But the Halloween costume turned into one idea that led into a uh business plan, if you will, because it came down to a goal. And like you said, I didn't know until the 2014. We all just thought that just like in business, right? No one sees the hard work and they see the the cars or the land, whatever the case of this success, yeah. They think, oh Meg, I made it, but don't see the prospect. So it's really cool to see how it comes about, man. Uh, let's talk about humble beginnings. He said, You how was I mean, I want to just I want to try to respect your identity, right? Yeah, because I know what we got. You're Spurs Jesus. But how was your born and raised San Antonio? How was how was the beginnings growing up? You said you never thought you saw see yourself court side.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah, I mean, growing up, um, you know, I grew up on the northeast side of town. I went to Roosevelt High School, um, you know, that side of town, you know, back in the 90s and early 2000s. Um, still, this that side of town still struggles. I mean, you know, um it was it was a rougher side of town growing up. Um, but we my dad was um a sales, a salesman for Mac trucks for a long time, Freightliner, and sold 18-wheeler trucks. You know, he did pretty well, but my mom was a stay-at-home mom. Um, and then, you know, like many, many kids in the world and in in San Antonio, um, you know, my parents unfortunately got divorced when I think I was like 10, and then my dad moved away. Um before that, my mom was a stay-at-home mom. So she kind of had to figure out her hustle on how to how to provide for you know me and my brother, and as we were, you know, entering high school and and um obviously an expensive as a parent, an expensive phase in a kid's life, and but uh also a very important time, and I'm sure her as well was probably trying to figure out, of course, how to provide how to provide, you know. Um so, anyways, yeah, growing up, it was a lot of um I like to I like to say I'm a pretty good cook because growing up you'd have to figure out, okay, let's just see whatever random, random ingredients we got in the fridge and figure out how to make it into something edible. So um I always wanted to be on the show Master Chef, and I always said if I did my my like cookbook or whatever afterwards would be leftover master because that's cool. But yeah, so that's that's yeah, we we didn't come from from much growing up.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

So humble beginnings uh shaped through the person who you are today, right? And especially we said when before you became the character, you were shy, nervous, and this brand, this persona really put confidence into you. Explain a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

How does that yeah, you know, just growing up, I uh you know, I was uh overweight as a kid um growing up, and you know, I'm sure I'm overweight now as a dad. Been working hard on his dad mod. Uh but you know, just I think growing up as a as a overweight kid, I was just um, you know, a lot of a lot of um self-consciousness, self-doubt, you know. I I I just a lot of a lot of kids get picked on growing up, even though I was a bigger kid, I would get you know name called for being chubby, fat, whatever you want to say. Um and so I think that that made me self-conscious and nervous a lot, which in turn made me shy. Um but then growing up of you know, I I ended up becoming a personal trainer and so I I got out of my shyness, but I think that's motivation, the growing up as chubby kid, fat kid. You think you know, I I mean honestly, I was always into sports growing up. I just was I just was I was chubby. I think I ate one too many tacos and enchiladas in San Antonio, you know. Um I I had a I always played baseball, football, basketball growing up, and and you know, love was an athlete. So uh as I got older and got into high school and played high school football, I mean I definitely grew out of my my you know adolescent chubby phase, you know. Um so I don't think that that necessarily was the motivation to become a personal trainer. I think more so the motivation to become a personal trainer was because I was an athlete and into athletics and all that. Um but I just even though I was I think being a personal trainer helped kind of break me out of the shyness because you have to sit there and and um you know converse with your clients a lot. Um but definitely not ready to be in front of 18,000 people with the spotlight shined on you. You know, I wasn't let that level of comfortability and confidence yet. Uh you know, now now you can point cameras at me and all that. I'm pretty fine with it.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

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SPEAKER_00 19:46

So, yeah, I mean, back in 2020, you know, when my brand um well, really it's 2013. 2013, the Spurs made it to the finals. We don't talk about 2013 in San Antonio, you know, that one still hurts. That was kind of like the year that we deleted off the calendar, uh, off the record books. Um, but when the Spurs, so I became Spurs Jesus in 2010-11, right? Um that's only two years later that the Spurs are in the finals, 2013, right? And so um word had started to catch of the Spurs Jesus character because I had made it that first time that I dressed this way, uh, at the very first game where I sat courtside, I had made it to NBA.com, I had made it to ESPN.com and a bunch of basketball blogs, but it didn't make it a sports center, like I mentioned, right? But the the NBA world was starting to figure out about this, you know, courtside Jesus, you know. Um so in 2013, I got asked to do a whole bunch of interviews by, you know, Miami reporters, ESPN reporters, which was great. Obviously, all the local reporters, I was doing radio things, it just my schedule was full all day. But like I mentioned, I was a personal trainer. So I didn't have like a salary. I only worked when I went to work, you know what I mean? So I had to take a lot of time off of work to go do these interviews. And at the time I was just doing it because I was passionate about it. I was just like excited, you know, the Spurs are in the freaking finals. You want to interview me? Hell yeah. I'm sorry, guys, I can't come to work today. I gotta go do this interview, right? So the next year when 2014 rolls around and it's happening again, I did it again. You know, I was again, I was young, I was in my early 20s, and so you know, I didn't think about like, you know what, I probably should go make money instead I'm doing these interviews and losing money, right? But then that started to settle in, you know, when I couldn't pay my bills and all that, you know. I was like, okay, I gotta figure out something's gotta give here. Either I gotta stop being Spurs Jesus and just focus on my personal training stuff and figure out what my next moves are so I can really start making some some serious money, you know. Um, or I need to figure out how to monetize the Spurs Jesus thing. And so that's kind of where I came to like a fork in the road, right? It was like, okay, if I'm gonna keep on doing the Spurs Jesus thing at the level that I want to do, like my scale. Is booked all day in the NBA finals. Literally, I looked at my calendar one day and from like 7 a.m. to about 7 p.m. Like right up until just about tip-off of the game, I had uh an interview with a news station or a radio station. Like, I mean, there I didn't even have a lunch break from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. or one day during the finals, right? So I was like, I gotta, I gotta do something, right? So then that's when I figured out okay, well, like I I've got something cool here with this brand. Like I mentioned, to uh I had built a following on social media and it was allowing me the opportunity to do some really good positive important things in the community. So I was like, you know what, let's let's just let's just go all in on this Spurs Jesus thing, right? Um and so I figured out you know how to become a content creator and and leverage my following and um you know brand awareness um to promote other people's brands and get paid for it, um, as well as host events and get paid for that, and then as well as create my own, you know, merchandise like fiesta metals and things like that that would allow me to uh monetize the brand that I was working on.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

It's pretty cool, man. It's cool to see a story turn from passionate of one basketball. I know you're a big Super Spurs fan, and turn into a business. Uh you're saying you're booked, that especially when it was that finals time. You're doing this all yourself?

unknown 23:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

It's a lot of coordinating for one person. A lot of hustle. A lot of hustle, yeah. It's a lot of definitely trying to hustle moments.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

I say that. So, I mean, starting off early on, it was all me because it was it was all organic. There was no plan. I never had a plan in place and never had you know put together a uh you know company framework or a business plan or anything. It just was happening in real time, you know. Um I think once we kind of got to that point where uh I figured that we should start treating it like a brand and and and monetizing it, and and um that's around the same time I met my wife. Um and so she's done a lot and has been a a big help in kind of helping me film content, um, manage you know, manage what we're doing with the brand a little bit more. Um but yeah, now kind of moving forward into this next phase, next chapter of the Spurs. I mean, obviously we've just seen it with the success that we've had since drafting Wemby, and of course in this season that just wrapped up, the Spurs are gonna be, and the draft that just happened, the Spurs are gonna be freaking fantastic for the next decade, if not two decades. So now I'm kind of shifting my lens to think about the whole next chapter of of the Spurs Jesus brand and what how do we what do we do now? You know, um, because I think the you know they say strike when the iron's hot and I feel like the iron is smoldering currently.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

So it's crazy, man. As you're as you're speaking about looking at the future, the Spurs um gonna be a dominant team for the next 10 to 15 years, 20 years, whatever that is. I think at my point, man, I'm like you're like reading the market, man. You're reading the market. In my business, I read the market when it comes to real estate. You're reading the market with your figure and with your brand, and how hey, Spurs is gonna become dominant in the next 10-15 years. What is that marketing look like? What's that brand partnership look like? Yeah. Now refresh my memory. Do I recall you were being part of uh Best Tickets in Papa John's?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

How did that Papa John's happen, man? And what was the the outcome? Who reaches out to who?

SPEAKER_00 25:19

You know, I'm trying to remember how that happened. Um, but so I was sponsored by Papa John's um I think right after the might have been right after the 2014 championship, moving into 2015. Um the owner of Papa John's here, the majority owner, he's a great guy. His name's Clark Mandigo, uh, great friend. Same thing. And him and I were connected, I think, in a lot of the same circles. They had a uh big, they were a sponsor of the Spurs at the same time, and they had created a new pizza box with um Cruz Ortiz, local artist Cruz Ortiz. He had done uh I Love My Spurs Pizza Box. Um, and I think that with all the connectivity that they were trying to, you know, do a really strong local push. I want to say that they had reached out to me to help with the promotion, and then we figured out how to kind of turn that into an ongoing partnership. Um so yeah, I worked with Papa John's for um, I want to say almost six, seven years. And then um they actually are the reason why I ended up creating my own podcast. Um, they asked me to do it. So we had been partners where I had my own promo code. It was SJ40. I still have the promo code, by the way, SJ40 works at papajohns.com. Using the order tonight. It gets you 40% off. Yeah, it's only on regular menu priced pizzas. So if there's like a new special type of New York style pizza, or screw New York, uh, you know, or uh, you know, let's say Toy Story 5. I know they're doing that right now. You know, it doesn't get you anything off the special ones, but 40% off all regular menu price pizzas. SJ40. Yeah, yeah, do it. Do it. Uh so you break bread with Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Break bread with Jesus is money. So, anyways, we did this partnership for a long time. Um, and then right around when when COVID happened, you know, that was a big time for pizza business, right? But at the same time, they were uh their whole other marketing budget got cut and all that. Uh COVID was difficult. But um, they they were like, look, we can keep this going, but let's just switch it up. Like podcasts are popular right now. Why don't you try doing a podcast? So that's how I got my own podcast, is because they were like, let's switch it up from you doing social media content creation to let's do a podcast like we're doing now, and then post that that social media content creation of your podcast. So, anyways, that was how that started. Um, but yeah, we're we're we have since we took a break after COVID, uh, but now we are working together again. That's why the podcast the SJ40 still works. So that's cool. Look out for some content from there. But yeah, I my main brands that I work with right now are Papa John's, uh Best Tickets, and Taco Palenque. Um I'm trying to think of anybody else that I'm missing, but those.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

How does that work? What's the what's the code for that one? Yeah, I don't have a Taco Blanket code.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Yeah, I don't have a Taco Blanca code, but um, but yeah, I'm a I'm a brand ambassador for them.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

So what Taco Balenque was like a commercial? What how does that look like on the back end of them?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Like, same thing. I mean, they hire me to uh be a content creator for them as well. Um, and so you know, I put together my own my own content with you know featuring their menu items and brands or or menu items and offerings that they have like yesterday. Um they sent uh they're doing catering now, so they have these big catering boxes, and so they sent some catering boxes to my house. So we like staged at my house and and then did it, uh, which is kind of the fun part of being a content creator. Uh, but uh staged at a watch party for the USA match last night um at our house. So yeah, so we filmed the filmed the content um and then a good time with Taco Blink. And then have a and then have a party. Yeah. So who's called?

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Brand awareness, man. That brand turns into eyeballs, eyeballs turn into money, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah, yeah. You said during the middle of this you met your wife. What year was that?

SPEAKER_00 29:05

We met in um 2016. Um, and actually, it's kind of a crazy thing. And I mean, I don't know. Depends on how how you look at it, but it I think a lot of the reason if you if you add up, connect all the dots of how we met, it really wouldn't have happened if I had never become Spurs G. That was part of my question. Did y'all meet like at a game when you're no, but I saw sitting courtside at the game, I sat I sat next to and became friends with Mike Lind, right? Mike Lind owns BC Lind um and a bunch of other real estate companies, but he also was a part owner of the company that owned the St. Anthony Hotel at the time, right? Um, and so I had the fitness company. Um at the time I had mentioned that when I started Spurs Jesus, I was a personal trainer. Well then I ended up starting my own fitness company um that I had for a while. So sitting next to Mike Lynn, I'm always thinking of hustling and opportunities as well. Um and so I knew he had the St. Anthony. Um I always thought that my fitness company would be cool in hotels to service travelers, you know, because I had a tour option that I had created because it was based downtown near the Riverwalk, right? So I had pitched him the idea of having my fitness company in the St. Anthony Hotel. Uh that took a long time, long, you know, a lot of negotiations, a lot of work, a lot of hustle. Uh and then we got there. I had my fitness company in the St. Anthony Hotel for a while. So they had me as the uh director of health and wellness for the hotel. My fitness company was in our was trying to build. It was right after their renovation that they had just done. They did a $50 million renovation of the St. Anthony Hotel. So I had my fitness company in there. Um, and then their marketing director realized that was Spurs Jesus, and they were trying to activate their rooftop bar that they had at the top. So he was like, I love the fitness thing, but let's talk about the Spurs Jesus thing. Because he was from LA and really understood they had just started using micro influencers to do openings of things, right? Um, so he was like, Let's have you host rooftop parties on the weekends uh up at the of course I was like, hell yeah, let's do that, right? So they ended up giving my me a hotel room at the St. Anthony. So I had my own hotel room, uh, and then I was working on the fitness company by day, and then throwing parties and promoting for in the evenings, which was crazy. One time we had a rooftop party, and AJ McLean from the Backstreet Boys came. I mean, it was it was like it was cool up there. Uh so, anyways, the hotel had just been redone, super fancy, super fabulous. Um, they had decorated it for the first time for Christmas, so it was like to the nigh, it was beautiful, beautifully decorated for Christmas. Uh, one of my friends who would come to our rooftop parties all the time uh was one of the producers for Great Day SA here in San Antonio. They were redoing their remodeling their studios, so they needed a place to film for for a couple months. And so him, even him having the relationship, I said, Why don't y'all film from the hotel? The hotel's a beautiful backdrop, and it's right around Christmas time. It's perfect, it's already decorated. And he was like, I love it. So, anyways, I pitched that to the owners of the hotel. They loved the idea, but they were like, Okay, this is fantastic, but since you have a room here and you're already on property, you need to be the liaison. So you just when they film every morning, you need to go downstairs and make sure that you're there to in case they need something. They never needed anything. So I just basically sat there and watched the the morning show live every day. Well, this was around Christmas time, and they had a fashion segment. Um, and at the time my wife was friends with the stylist that did the fashion segment, and so they had asked her if she would come down and be a model for the fashion segment, and they were doing New Year's Eve looks, you know, like here's some styles for New Year's Eve. And so, anyways, I was sitting there, it was cold outside, so I was in like the I have the retro, the black warm-up suit that has the three, the three stripe, yeah, the the old retro one, right? That's that's maiden's comeback, right? So I had the full you know, warm-up suit and pants, right? So I'm sitting there in the in the retro colors, and I'm talking to one of the production assistants, right? And she's like had like four espresso already because she was just like going a mile a minute, and I'm sitting there, it's like seven in the morning, and so I'm listening to her, we're hanging out, we're talking, and then I see the modeling stuff going on. And I, you know, I yes, I thought my wife was pretty attractive at the time. And so this this production assistant was like, pick your job up, man, pick your job off the floor. Like, you know, you're just staring at this girl, right? And so I was like, I mean, I'm just sitting here. So, anyways, after the uh after that, she was like, Go talk to her. But, you know, the owners had definitely told me when they gave me my own hotel room, like, don't make this hotel like your playground, buddy. Like, you know, and I was I was like, you know, I mean, I'm super respectful of that. I was like, of course, you know, so anyways, I was I told the production assistant, I was like, I'm not gonna go talk to this girl. I'm I'm working, like, you know, I can't I can't do that, right? So very middle school, this production assistant goes and finds her outside in the parking lot. He's like, hey, did you see that guy in the retro Spurs gear? Like, you know, he he definitely has like a crush on you kind of thing, and like you should you should give him a yeah, you should give him a gear number and it so, anyways, she ended up giving her the number and and the rest is history. Uh, I ended up reaching out around Fiesta time that year, and then very quickly here we are. Almost ten years later.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

So, when did you figure out the character and how did that go for the first time? Um then a conversation even happened.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

You know, she didn't know that was one of the things to me that I thought was actually like attractive that she had never heard of Spurs Jesus. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, so she didn't know. It wasn't like she was just like, you know, hey, I've seen this guy sit school inside, let me see if let me see if he'll take me to a game or something like that. Uh but the funny thing is her parents and all of her parents' friends knew who Spurs Jesus was. So when she told them, like, hey, I met this guy, like I think he said his name was like Spurs Jesus or something, they were like, What? Like, yeah. So, anyways, um I ended up like I think actually meeting her parents before I even met her, like really met her, met her in person. Um, but yeah, I don't remember the first time that she like actually figured out or understood that I was Spurs Jesus. But our first date uh was at Taste of New Orleans during Fiesta, and I was a food judge for Taste of New Orleans uh as Spurs Jesus, but I had just injured myself, and so I had a cast on and I was on a scooter, and so I was like, Do you want to come like basically co-food judge this with me? Because I can't do it by myself. And I I knew she really liked New Orleans. So, anyways, that was our first date, and I I was dressed this way. So I guess she kind of went to our first date with me like this. So that's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Let's talk about a love story, man. Fall in love with Spurs Jesus. Yeah, yeah. Let's go back to the the business uh model of it. So, what about the merch, man? How does how does the merch who comes up with the ideas? How do we get the this merch sold? I I see the the race for says candle.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Yeah. I mean, so the merch uh back in like 2012, and that's kind of kind of what started, I guess, my relationship with the Spurs or my my brand awareness and understanding with the Spurs and how things work. Uh, but back in 2012, there's a well-known um local artist named Robert Tatum. Uh, and I knew I lived in the downtown area, kind of right by the Blue Star area where his studios were. Um, and he wanted to make basically the first ever image of me to go on a candle. Um, and so he has a really unique art style, and so I love the way he does art, so I was I was all for it. So we made it into a shirt also, and it was uh it was just an image of me, very, very prayer candle style, like you know, like with my fingers like this and like sun rays coming out and all that. Um and so on the above the top it said believe, and then at the bottom it said go spurs go, right? And so I again had was just getting you know, I guess, in into this whole thing, you know. Um I figured since he was an artist, you know, he had a good understanding of what he could and couldn't do. Anyways, we ended up selling these shirts. Um that was the first ever piece of merchandise that I had. Um, but three years later, after we won the championship in 2014, a bunch of pictures of me had gone viral from the standing court side in 2014. Um, and so the NBA had started doing a deeper dive into my Facebook account. And so they scrolled into my Facebook account three years back to where we had those t-shirts, and they saw that it said Ghostburst Go on it. And that's when I finally got contacted by the NBA because that phrase, Ghostburst Go, is trademarked by or copywritten by the by the NBA, so you can't just print that, right? And so, anyways, I ended up getting in trouble for that. But that was the very first piece of merch in 2012. Um, but they sold out pretty quickly, and I realized, okay, again, there's a a demand for for merchandise with my character on it, or you know, influenced by my character. And then so after that, we created Fiesta metals, those sold out pretty quick.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Yeah, I love the fiesta metals, those things are hot.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Yeah, and then people, you know, have very much so been um I'll just say my my medal every year is highly sought after. People are always, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

Yeah, I think you gotta think San Antonio, you gotta think fiesta. It's a true San Antonio put together piece. That's like a rare trading card.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Well, see, and that's another thing right there, like kind of going into the hustle and and talking about business, right? You know, um, so I realized after doing my Fiesta medal for a couple years that the demand was there, right? And that the excitement was there. People would start messaging me like in like January. You know, Fiesta isn't until April. People message me in January, like, hey, look, do you have your medal yet? Is it out yet? How can I buy it? Do you have any from last year? You know, I still get messages from hey, people send me, do you have 2018's medal? I don't have that one, you know what I mean? And so I realized, okay, people are really looking forward to this. Um, you know, it maybe I can create an event around it, and then we can turn the event into something that makes us more money, helps out a local venue, and also helps out local businesses who want to participate in it, right? Um, so we created the Fiesta Metal Mercado. And so me and my wife have this event, which has now gone on. This was our sixth year last year. It would have been eight had COVID not happened, but um, it's turned into a pretty big event now that is kind of the release of my Fiesta Metal, um, but also a full-on market where you can shop like 30 other vendors.

SPEAKER_03 39:31

Is that the mercado?

SPEAKER_00 39:32

No, no, no. It's uh it's at different different venues. It was at a place called Latuna in Southtown for a long time. Last year we did it at Jaime's place on the west side. Um, and then this year uh or coming up into next year, I guess, 2027, not sure where we're gonna have it yet. Um but but it's usually a pretty big, big space that feels very fiesta vibe. Yeah, but um you know, again, seeing reading the reading the market like you're saying, seeing that okay, there's a demand for this, um, we can turn this rather in than just me saying, hey guys, here's my medal, you can order it online, to it being like a full-on community event. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

And for those of you who are not local to San Antonio, Fiesta is a week, a two-week long, sometimes was it two, two and a half week long tradition that's been going on for I don't know how many years here in the city, and basically the whole city comes together downtown, the whole downtown just transforms. I mean, I used to live downtown as well. Uh, used to be called the Vastana right there across from the so I live there, and I couldn't even get into my apartment building because the whole streets are shut down, there's vendors everywhere, there's parades, there's day parades, night parades, there's parties everywhere. So if you don't know what fiesta is, it's a for sure a San Antonio thing, but I think it's even become an international thing where people come up from Mexico and out of the country just to come experience Fiesta, and there's so many different events. There's Taste of the North Side, there's I can't even name all the different stuff.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

So I mean, we I always explain to people, my wife and I are on the Fiesta Commission's um media team. So we create content for Fiesta, which is really cool. Um but yeah, Fiesta's been around for over a hundred years. Um we have uh when I explain Fiesta to somebody, I always think think of like Mexican Mardi Gras. Everybody, everybody in the world knows. It's a great way to bring it up. Well, everybody knows what Mardi Gras is around the world, right? And and something that me and my wife are passionate about. We met during Fiesta, like I said. Um the world should know more about Fiesta, just like Mardi Gras. You know, San Antonio and New Orleans, we're sister cities, we're the same age, right? But everybody knows about Mardi Gras, and nobody really knows about Fiesta. Um, anyways, we want to make it more of an international thing. But think Mexican Margaret, Mardi Gras, same thing. It's not as not as racy as Mardi Gras. You know, you you won't see, you know, naked, naked folks uh out and about, and it's most debauchery. You know, uh it's definitely more wholesome. But same thing where you have a lot of pageantry, a lot of events, a lot of parades, a lot of festivals for for two weeks. Basically the whole city shuts down for two weeks.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

From a business standpoint, it's so perfect for you though, because like you said, the medals is something that so people who know about Fiesta and people who go to Fiesta, they look forward to specific creators and specific brands. You know, Whataburger has a fun one. And so not only that, but because of the timing that it's in April and you're coming up to finals and playoffs and all that stuff, it's such a perfect timing for you to capitalize. That's really cool that you found that and that niche in the U.S.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Yeah, that's exciting that um the Spurs are back in the in the playoffs. Um, you know, my our Fiesta Metal Mercado this year, there was um it wasn't a playoff game yet because the playoffs hadn't started, but we already knew that we were going to the playoffs. But there was a Spurs game happening at the exact, you know, during our Mercado, which was crazy. Yeah. Uh just just a great great vibe. But yeah, my Fiesta Metal this year, says I knew we were going to the playoffs, um, had a little spinner at the bottom, and on one side it said Fiesta 26, and then if you spun it around, it said playoffs 26 with the playoff logo. Um so because there's not that's the to me, I always say it's the best time of the year in San Antonio is April because you have fies you can go from a fiesta event straight to a playoff game. And that's a pretty exciting time.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

Well, just like business, man, business has their ups and downs, right? 2014 was a highlight for the Spurs, right? We said we deleted 13, 14 was a highlight for the Spurs. Then we had a drought, right? The drought that came around after the the 14, I was like what, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and I'm gonna keep going into it. Yeah, how did that look business-wise for Spurs Jesus? If the crowd is not as hyped as it was from the playoffs and kind of that drought period.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

You know, um, I mean, I th I think that that time was an interesting time for me in Spurs Jesus period because so me and my wife, um, you know, I was I was voted best local celebrity in twenty eighteen. Uh well, I was voted best local celebrity in twenty sixteen and again in twenty eighteen. Um I was Prince of the Riverwalk in twenty seventeen and I was also nominated for man of the year with Leukemia Lymphoma Society in twenty eighteen. So So a lot of big things had like I felt like we were really, really, really, really like catching catching steam, you know. Um, again, before that, I mean that was 2016, is what I said. So before that, 2015, I caught a burglar on the Riverwalk, and that story went like worldwide viral. That went worldwide. We'll talk about that in a second if you want, but that went worldwide route. So that again was another catalyst that really shot my character up. Before that was 2014 when we won the championship, and before that, we were in the finals in 2013. So it was a lot of momentum, right? And then in 2018, uh me and my wife got pregnant and had our had our son. Um that was fantastic, obviously, but definitely kind of uh changed my focus. So we're where I was, you know, locked in on Spurs Jesus stuff, that that kind of shifted focus for a second. Um then 2019, you know, that was fine, but still becoming a father and figuring all that. And then 2020 happened, and that so I feel like the momentum was going like this, and then kind of plateaued for a second while I foot focused on being a new father, and then and then 2020 happened and every you know, everything. My whole everybody's my whole business structure really was uh built around people's disposable income uh for merchandise on that side, and then businesses marketing budgets, you know, for hiring me to be a content creator or to uh you know promote for their brand or be a brand ambassador or what you know, whatever. So uh and then I had mentioned to you off off camera, but before that, I think it was off-camera, I don't remember, but uh before at the same time, my wife and I, we had realized we both had a pretty strong passion for um marketing and communications. And my wife went to UT for communications, um, and so she was really good at social media and digital marketing and and content creation, and she would help me out with a lot of stuff. So we had started doing that for other brands is helping you know local businesses with their digital marketing strategy, um, their content creation and social media management. So we also lost all of that business when the when COVID and 2019 happened. So we really, like no lie, got to the point where we had zero income coming in, like on both for both of us. Um so obviously that was a scary time and shift focus. But then you kind of have to, and just like in business, kind of think about how do you keep on recreating yourself, how do you keep recreating your brand or elevating your brand to the next level that keeps it relevant, keeps it um, you know, generating revenue and and keeps it in demand. And that's kind of again where we went to having our own podcast and figured out, okay, well, if we can't go do events or if we can't um, you know, go promote for a brand opening of a new restaurant or whatever it is, because that's not happening right now, how do we figure out another way? So the podcast came in. Um that's when we restarted our part partnership with Papa John's, which was great. Um that also sent us a lot of pizza during COVID, which was great. Uh yeah. Um but then then we realized, okay, well, how do we continue to to expand on this and make this opportunity even more lucrative for our brand and our business? Um, and then so we figured out different ways to add in more sponsors um and getting creative creative with product placement and things like that with the show. So um one good thing that I'll say kind of for my brand, which I think is interesting, um, is when we're really good, the Spurs fans are like, Yeah, Spurs Jesus, you did it. You did it. You know, we love you. And then when the Spurs are really bad, they're like, oh man, Spurs Jesus, we really need you right now. Like, you know, so I feel like that's crazy, man.

SPEAKER_03 47:49

That's crazy how this character turned into such a powerful tool.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

Right. So I feel like you know, it's kind of one of those things where you're up, you're up, you're down, you're down. And it just kind of depends on from a marketing standpoint of how do we play that. You know, how do we how do we push that? It's a unique situation. Yeah. Um and same thing, like, you know, when the Spurs were down, and I, you know, the interest in the Spurs, which I I hate that. I'll say right now that I hate that about uh certain fans, is that when when the Spurs are bad, they're like, I'm not watching them anymore. You know, I'll I'll put I'll I'm putting my Spurs jersey in my attic. I'll get it out when they're good again. I hate that. All right.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

It's like at the small percentage though. San Antonio is, I feel super. I talked to a lot of people. I guess you would know.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

I talked to a lot of people. You you would you'd be surprised when before we got Wemby, when we even even Wemby's first year, people would be like, Yeah, I don't know yet. I'm not sold on this team yet. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, a lot of empty seats in the state. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, anyways, uh, you know, during that time, that was also when I would get a lot of messages from Spurs fans because that was when we started the 35 series, right? Where we would go to Austin.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

Um, and a lot of Spurs fans were worried that the Spurs were going to move to Austin, you know, and by all means, the Spurs were definitely shopping to see if that was viable to have the Spurs there for sure. Um but I was like, okay, how do I keep my brand relevant? How do we keep growing my brand? How do we keep Spurs? My brand is really dependent on Spurs fans being in love with the Spurs and being engaged in this. You know what I mean? If people don't care about the Spurs, they're not going to show up to my Spurs parties, you know, or whatever. Um, so I decided let's create a radio show. And so I reached out to my friend Xavier, the freaking Recon. And so we started the SATown shoot around uh because the idea was let's talk about the good memories. Let's talk, let's keep, let's keep fans thinking about the Spurs even when we're not that good right now. You know, this people should be thinking of the nostalgia of, you know what, like, yeah, the team's not that great right now. We're in a rebuild period, but man, I love the Spurs. You know what I mean? And that was kind of the whole the whole thought there. So continuing to think about ways to reinvent yourself or reinvent your brand or add a new arm or branch of your brand that can uh thrive in um a harsh climate.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

I really like the business aspect of it, man. That mindset that you have of creating that brand, because that brand is obviously bringing the income, creating that brand, and just like in business, man, your tactics are like, hey, think strategically on what can we do to move forward to the next steps, man. And it's very cool to see how the brand shifts at all times, just like a business would shift at all times. And that's always excited to have you on this podcast, man, too. People don't see the the business behind it, people don't see the time behind it, the money, the energy, the efforts, the thought process, the planning, the game planning, the strategic future. They just see Spurge Jesus at a Spurs game.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:49

Yeah. No, for sure. That's the hustle, man.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

Mentioned the 2015 scenario you save uh burglar. But yeah, you you got a burglar. How did that all come about?

SPEAKER_00 50:59

So again, you know, the crazy story. Um I was a personal trainer still living downtown. Um, I think I had at the time I had I think I had just started my own fitness company. But anyways, I was home for like a lunch break. Um I was living in the Southtown area. Uh I was renting a house. My house backed up to the um mission reach trail of the river, um, right by Brackenridge High School. Um, and so I was upstairs for a lunch break, and it was like summertime, off season. Uh, it was super hot outside. It was like August, I think. Um, so I was at upstairs in my house, and I was thinking folding laundry or something. I heard this noise that sounded like my, I had a chocolate lab at the time. It sounded like him coming up the stairs, but I looked over and he was asleep on my floor, and so I was like, what the heck is that noise, right? So I went and looked, and there was a guy at my second story window, and he had his fingers under the window, and he was trying to shimmy up the window, and that's what that noise was, right? So I pulled the curtain back and he saw me and he went running, right? And so I chased him out the backyard. Um, and he had already gotten over the fence, he had a bike, and he was running with his bike. Um, and so at the time I was, like I said, I was a personal trainer, I was an athlete, and so uh I was sprinting after him and I kind of football style shoulder checked him and he dropped his bike and he fell down into the actually into the river walk, right? Oh my gosh. And so I was like, dude, you were about to break into my house. So I was like coming after this dude. So I was like jump squatting down the side of the river walk, like down to him, and he saw me like coming after him like a madman, and he swam to the other side of the river, right? When I chased him, I scraped my leg open really bad, and I have a big old scar still from a fence that I jumped because I I only had shorts and socks on when I chased him, right? So when I put my foot on the fence, my socks slipped, and the like metal part of the top of the fence just like got my leg real nasty, right? So I was like, I'm I'm not jumping in the river, bro. I'm not trying to lose my leg. So, anyways, this dude gets to the other side of the river, and I'm walking back to my house. I had taken my cell phone with me, so I'd already started calling the cops, right? Uh, and I see this bike, and I knew this dude had stolen this bike. It was a super fancy bike. It wasn't mine, you know. But so, anyways, I pick up his bike and I'm walking back with it. And this guy yells at me across the river and he goes, Sir, sir, can I have my bike back? And like, I mean, like, I'll mention Spartans again, like Leonidas from the Spartans. I was like, Come and take it, you know? Is that in Russian? Yeah. And this dude actually comes. There was there right there, there's a bridge by Brackenbridge High School. It's called Eagle Land Bridge. Uh, and he walks across the bridge, comes right back up to me. I'm on the phone with the police, by the way, and he comes right up to me, like thinking I'm just gonna go ahead and give him this bike back, right? Uh and the police are like, Where's he at now, sir? And I'm like, he's standing right here. I'm like, you know, just get here. I'll hold him down until you get here. So he hears me say that, and he goes running back across the bridge. I chased him down and tackled him at the end of the bridge and held him down until the police came and got him. Well, the story gets crazier, right? So, well, after that, let me let me finish out how that goes. So after that, uh, my real name is a really unique name. I'm probably the only one in San Antonio with that name, right? Um, and so the news combs through, reporters comb through police reports at the end of the day to see if there's anything, you know, juicy to report about. So they see my name and they have interviewed me before as Spurs Jesus. And back when I first started, I would tell people my real name. So they have my, they knew my name, right? So I get a call from the news and it's like, hey, did you catch a burglar today? And I'm like, Yeah, they're like, You're Spurs Jesus, right? I'm like, yeah. They're like, Can we interview you? I'm like, sure. They're like, Will you be Spurs Jesus in the interview? And I was like, it's all you know, my head thinking, you know, business kind of wild. I was like, it's off season. I need some content, like, why not? Right. So I just did it. I didn't think about really the gravity of that, right? So then I did it. Um the next morning, I wake up and my phone like blew up overnight. Like I had hundreds of messages, hundreds of notifications. Well, so the story like ran in like every major news outlet, like USA Today, like everywhere. I got messages from Hong Kong, from Germany, like all over the world. Um that that uh San Antonio Jesus says, Thou shalt not steal. Or I mean, I was on like the front page of the Boston newspaper. I mean, like crazy stuff, right? So that was a something that definitely was a catalyst in the trajectory of you know of the brand. Um but yeah, that that was that was wild. So the story gets crazier, right? So this guy that I caught ends up going to prison for 10 years, right? Because two things. One, he was in a little like bike gang that would go around uh the Southtown neighborhoods, like King William, you know, that's a very rich neighborhood, wealthy neighborhood. Uh and they would break into people's houses during the day and just like you know, randomly steal stuff. Well, this one guy in particular had broken into a woman's home um in the Monta Vista area, right? Um, in the middle of the night and like laid in bed next to her for hours. Like supposedly didn't do anything, you know, inappropriate outside of that, you know, laying in bed, right? So something weird going on, right? So since he had that weird prior, right, uh he went to jail for prison for 10 years, right? So he just got out like a couple months ago, right? And I got a letter from the county saying so-and-so's out, you know, as part of his, you know, uh release, he owes you $100 or something, you know. So, anyways, I got a hundred bucks. Uh but fast forward a couple weeks, I get a DM from somebody, and it was like, hey, uh somebody met messaged me and said you caught this burglar a long time ago. Like, can you look at the surveillance footage and tell me if you think this is the same guy? Um basically there was like a peeping Tom in like a neighborhood, and he was like in an apartment complex, like looking through girls' windows uh and being inappropriate, right? Um, and so I look at the thing and I'm like, I don't yeah, I don't know, man. That looks pretty freaking close to the guy that I caught. Uh and so lo and behold, it turns out that this guy actually went and was being a peeping Tom and basically doing inappropriate things outside of people's windows, yeah, and got caught and went back to prison. Jesus. You're right, yeah, yeah. So I mean, that's definitely like a sexual predator. Thank God that we caught and got off the streets. I mean, you know. Uh, anyways, crazy story because that all just like resurfaced because of all this stuff that's nuts. But yeah, that again was something that really I mean, I probably gained thousands of followers from that and and definitely local, I mean, uh worldwide recognition from that moment.

SPEAKER_03 57:55

That's crazy how so much play on can happen, right? I mean, from the brand itself, obviously it's first, but the second brand obviously is Jesus. That thou shalt not steal, man. It's crazy how your your brand can get so many marketing materials by being creative and pushing that creative materials to turn into a business to to really you know flourish for you, man. So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 58:16

It's it's interesting, man. One day I'll write a book because like all of the like you just can't make this stuff up. I mean, you know, like all this all this random stuff that has happened is just I mean, you can't plan that. You can't plan as a marketing tool or ploy, I'm gonna have someone break into my house, I'm gonna catch them, and then I'm gonna do an interview as J Z.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

It just happens.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:40

That's the best way, honestly, when it just naturally.

SPEAKER_03 58:43

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SPEAKER_00 59:43

You know, uh every once in a while something's happened where like uh it'll cause my brand to or character to be like viral. Um like most recently I got into um I I don't want to say argument, but um into the conflict with the mayor at the steps of City Hall, right? Um of course that went San Antonio viral and I think a little bit beyond, but because of that, that reaches a whole new audience that might you know ha not have a an opinion of me yet, right? You know, so one as a as a business owner, don't ever read the comments. That doesn't help you at all. But of course, as a human, you end up doing that anyways, right? And so, you know, reading the comments, um something I've seen in moments of virality that my brand has had over the years is people always the misconception is people think I'm rich uh because I've gotten a said courtside, or that I'm like a trust fund kid, um you know, that I'm basically just a rich, spoiled brat because that's what they see. They see me sitting courtside, you know, or they see me getting something free from a brand or something like that, and then think that's all just handed to you, you know. But uh really that's not that's not the case. I'm just like everybody else, you know, working, working hard, trying to hustle as hard as we can, working multiple jobs inside hustles to pro, you know, provide for for me and my family and uh create a better future for you know uh than than we had growing up, you know, um for for my son, and of course to be able to do as much as we can for the community. So a lot of people think that's the biggest one that I'm I'm rich. I also have uh an old school car that is like tricked out and it looks like you know it's a it's my SJ Cruiser, is what I call it. It's like my Spurs Jesus mobile. But people think since I have that, that you know, like, oh I'm just rich and I have all these toys and stuff like that. But I worked hard for that, so got a loan for that, paid that off over a long time, missed a bunch of payments. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

Definitely the hard work and the hustle, right? Definitely the hard work hustle and using that brand and calling that. Now, what about that car? Did I hear something about that car you're trying to do?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

Oh, yeah. Um, well, you know, I'm thinking, I'm thinking about um And for those who don't know, describe the car so they have to paint the picture. Yeah, so I have a 1973 Buick Electra, which is kind of cool because the Spurs were founded in 1973, so so is the car. It's a 73. The Chaparrels. Chaparrell's? Chaparral's, yeah. I got I think I got it. Uh yeah, that's the logo right there. History. Yep. This is probably the last time I'll wear this costume, too. It is routered and tattered from all the finals games and playoff games. I'll have a new one, a new one made. But um 1973 Buick Electra, that's what they call a deuce and a quarter. Um is a Buick Electra, 225. Um, it's a four-door when you roll down all four windows, like there's no divider gap. So it's like one big old window, which is really cool. But it's all tricked out and spurs, uh, spurs colors and spurs patterns. It's got um like little spurs in a pattern like all over the car. Um, but it's black, mainly black. It's got like murder black tint, like the darkest tint you probably could get. Um, it's got 22-inch rims on it. But anyways, so I've had that for a while. I put a lot of love and work into that. But I'm thinking about raffling it off this summer and then maybe getting myself something different, starting, starting a new chapter or new mobile uh for the next season. So yeah, I'm thinking about raffling it off, man. That'd be cool. Yeah, yeah. That might be my my new business, my new business hustle. And I'll probably, if we do that, I'll probably uh you know, of course, donate donate some portion of the proceeds of that to a to a charity. Um not sure what yet, but or I might just start my own. I've been talking about I turn surprise gesus gets back. Yeah, well, you know, I turn I turned 40 this year um and in a couple months, and I've been thinking about a lot of things business-wise lately, and and uh, you know, I think something that's really important is you know, betting on yourself after a while. And I keep on thinking and about these ideas I have, these uh you know, dreams I have, things that I want to accomplish, you know, like a Spurs Gerity Spurs Jesus charity or something. Um and then I keep putting that off because of the, you know, that's a daunting thing to to go all in on something and think, okay, well, let me just keep on doing this grind that I'm used to, you know. Um but after a while, man, like that's what I don't want to look back in another 10 years when I'm 50 and say, man, you know what, I wish I did that when I was 40, and I still haven't done it yet. Like, let me let me go ahead and start my charity now, you know. Uh so I think we don't, you know, if you have something you're passionate about and you feel you feel that in your gut, like bet on yourself, man. Go for it. So yeah, I'm thinking, I'm thinking maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll maybe I'll take the portion and and start my own my own charity. I've been talking about it for too long.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:48

Well, you definitely have a brand, man, and you have a lot of eyeballs, man. And the goal is to take that brand and eyeballs and turn it into something. I'm sure the city will support you um by turning it into a uh organization, man. So I'm sure you gotta have a lot more support, man. Um you got a lot more than you think, man. A lot of business owners probably follow you, right? Business owners, individuals, donations, they take those those donations and of course make content out of it. That'd be cool too, right? Giving back. I always love those videos where you watch those videos where hey they're blessing someone and you know, what better way? Yeah. Bless people throughout San Antonio and get a lot of donations out of it. Let's do it. Uh let's get a little political, right? Talk about the mayor, talk about what about Marvel? You feel you feel like you're a voice of the people when it comes to uh protesting this whole Marvel situation?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:29

I mean, uh I think that to say voice to the people is is a tough one. I mean, on a situation as polarizing as Project Marvel, I mean, uh I think I have a lot of fans and followers, and you know, I'm friends with a lot of people that either feel one way or the other. You know what I mean? So I don't want to say I'm a voice for the people. Um I'll say I'm a voice for me, though. And I'm uh, you know, I'm a big advocate for Project Marvel, absolutely. Um, you know, that's kind of again. Why the uh uh I guess disagreement or altercation, whatever you want to call it, um dispute, we'll say dispute uh between me and the mayor happened. Um is she's against Project Marvel and I'm for it, you know. Um I just think that I've lived and worked downtown San Antonio for for, like I said, 20 years. Um I have a seven-year-old son, and thinking about the future, um that's that's what San Antonio needs, and something that I think will be I've I've used the word catalyst a lot uh in this episode, and I feel like um would be a massive catalyst for our city and for um our city center for sure. Um and leaving something for our future generations, you know, for my my kids and and grandkids as we move forward. So I think it's a big, big important yes that we put that thing there.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:54

I heard, I think if this is true, that the mayor had never, Miss Gene Ortiz had never been to a Spurs game until this last finals, is that correct? If you do you hear about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:03

Probably. I mean, I didn't hear about that, but I would have I would believe it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:06

So apparently she had never been to a game. And so one of the attorneys for the Spurs was out of town, and he's obviously been working with her trying to get her on board. Yeah. And not in a bribing way, but just hey, I'm out of town. I think that as the city mayor and as somebody who's very opinionated on what we're building for this city, what we should be building for this city, you should probably go to a game. And so he actually gave her his seats. They're not courtside, but they're fairly close. I saw him. And it was, you know, she it went all over the news that he's trying to bribe her and all this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, the number one thing we are known for is, and we're known for a lot, you know, we've got a lot of good stuff going on here, but we're known for the Spurs. The Spurs are our bread and butter, they're our team. Had they have gone to Austin, the city would have lost a ton of economic impact and revenue and income. And not only that, but just culture. I mean, this has been a team that's been very intertwined with the city. They do a ton of give back, they inspire the youth, like you said. I mean, tons of kids that have grown up over the years, you know, become better people, work for the organization, uh, build brands and businesses like you've done out of it. So there's so much business and so much positive impact that comes from it. For somebody who's the mayor of the city to have such a strong opinion and have never even experienced it, yeah, to me seems crazy. Yeah. And so I don't know. I don't know what her actual I don't know her very well. I don't follow um local politics as much as I probably should. Um I'm a big politics guy like the national level, but I'm not really, I mean, tutu in tune with the the local folks. Yeah. And um I don't know. I just feel like somebody who's got such a strong opinion against it, like how can you have how can you even have such a strong opinion opinion against it if you've never even experienced it? And she seems like a genuine-ish person, I mean, from from what I've seen. And so you've got to be able to understand how much of an impact it has. You've got to understand that if they move, it's gonna cause a huge, you know, downturn to the side.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

I'll tell you something right now, a couple things right now is I was in a meeting uh what's today, Friday uh Wednesday, Wednesday, um the NBA finals, and this is what we were trying to say from the get-go is listen, we have Victor Wimanyawa. Okay. I knew uh when 2023, when we got when we won the draft lottery, not not even when we drafted, when we went on the draft lottery, I cried because the impact that that is going to have for our city and our community, and and then the fact that he has very clearly stated that he wants to basically live out his entire career here. I mean, dude, the freaking basketball gods can't bless the city any more than they keep on doing. I mean, that is incredible. They said right away that Victor Womenyama's financial impact would be $500 million to a team instantly that got him back in 2023, right? And we're already seeing that happen. And so that's when we're talking about, oh, well, we don't need to move the arena. Build, and then it's not just for Victor. I don't want him, I don't want it to come across as that way, but build that man whatever he wants. If we if if whatever it we need to make it the most successful show in sports, you know, uh, let's do it. And in that meeting on Thursday, the NBA Finals alone, we're already seeing it happen. The NBA Finals alone this year brought in 36 million dollars to downtown San Antonio in what two weeks? I mean, that's insane, right? And that's not even a residual. And that's kind of again, that was my big stand back in August when we were talking about it, and her and I had the viral moment was if you don't think that the that if if we let's bring it back to business. It's all this is a business. Everybody's talking about all the Spurs they belong to San Antonio. No, they don't. They don't belong. I mean, they don't belong to us. We feel as San Antonian, you know, so such a Spurs are such a generational thing and and we bleed silver and black, you know, in San Antonio. It's our only thing, so we feel like it belongs to us. It doesn't. It's a it's a business, right? They can go wherever they want to go, right? And if at the end of the day, it doesn't make business sense for them to stay here because we're stalling a deal so long that it's costing them a lot of money, they could easily go to Austin. They could easily go to Vegas or somewhere else like that, Nashville, you know, somewhere where that's going to say Let's work. It's going to say, we'll front the whole thing. We'll pay for the whole thing. The Spurs are talking about putting over a billion dollars of their own money into this thing. And another city will say, hey, we'll pay for it all. Just come here. We would love to have a dynasty of a team and a storied team like you guys that's going to bring in $36 million every year in the finals for two weeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:46

And Alex kind of two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:49

And so that's where I was saying is listen, like, sure, you want another economic in impact study? Like, let's do another one, but let's do the what what the economic impact would be if the Spurs did leave and they went to Austin. What would that look like for San Antonio? Right? Let's do that impact study because I went to a game in Austin. I think it was the first year that we did the 35 series, right? That was the first year that we got Wemby in partnership with Best Tickets. We just happened to sit in a suite at the Moody Center, right? The suites at the Moody Center don't have like walls in between them. You can see into the next suite over. Adam Silver, NBA commissioner, is sitting in the suite next to me, right? I'm sitting there thinking, like, how freaking cool, like that Wemby has such a gravitational pull that Adam Silver is sitting next to me, right? Well, then fast forward a few years and we start seeing uh reports of backroom talks about, you know, with Spurs, Coach Pop, you know, mayor of Austin and things like that. And then I start to put the pieces together. He wasn't there to see Wemby play, he was there to have meetings with the Spurs to see the viability of can the Spurs actually exist in Austin? Would this be viable, right? And so that's what I'm saying is we don't, if we don't vote Project Marvel through, if we don't get this done, the Spurs absolutely will be moving somewhere else. Uh and during the Win Together campaign, I had many moments where I got to sit with Spurs top leadership and and they Sean Elliott got like about as close to saying that as you can from a PR standpoint without saying it. Like, guys, we have to get this yes or we very well could lose our team. And when they when those guys are saying it, I mean it's like, okay, well, there's no there there is no other answer, in my opinion, then you just it's a yes all the way.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:43

Look at the economic uh impact, like you said, if something like the Spurs were to move, especially what I do, right? And it's just I'm just one aspect of it when it comes to real estate. Think about the market of real estate, right? Losing houses, getting sold, people moving to Austin, the money not coming in. So that one is a trickle-down effect of not just Spurs.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:59

Hotel business, tourism, I mean just merchandise. Yeah. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

I mean, I mean, we all we all hate to s to have seen that many, I'm just gonna say Knicks assholes in San Antonio. There's a lot uh but at the same time, I mean, that obviously has a great um economic impact to our city uh and our city center, having that many tourists come to the city for about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:33

I mean, all the good publicity you get from a worldwide standpoint, you know, on your city, all that goes away like that. Instantly.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:41

I mean, San Antonio and the Spurs are definitely back in the global stage and spotlight for sure, and in a way that we've never been before. I mean, and that's something that is definitely uh the Wemby effect because you know, we he is Tim Duncan and and Tony Parker Immanu and and David Robinson, you know, we we were great, we won lots of championships, but the we didn't have that like interesting edge that creates that constant media attention and talking piece and spotlight like Wemby has. You know what I mean? Wemby has that like little extra bit of star power, you know what I mean? That uh And in social media, right? 99s and the social media, Instagram, and TikTok and Wimby being uh But also he's just more I mean he's more out there in a different way. Like I mean, Tim Duncan wasn't flying uh fashion week. I mean, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:36

Like from Roll Louis Vuitton.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:37

Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:38

So it's a different whole alien thing with Nike downtown and so many things.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:42

Yeah, it's a whole new era and a new level of being in that global spotlight for San Antonio. We gotta make sure that we're that we're capitalizing on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:50

You know, Infiesta Texas is cool, SeaWorld's cool, Tower of America's cool. It's not the Spurs. You're not getting the impact at these places that you are with the Spurs, right? Some, you know, the families will come in, fly in, go to SeaWorld for five days and leave, but you're not getting the news covering that. You're not getting, you know, it's not bringing you the impact that that the Spurs do.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:06

I mean, when we were talking about when the vote was happening uh for Project Marvel, I mean I was being dramatic, but I was being dramatic on purpose. And I was like, if the Spurs leave, you might as well knock down the Alamo and pave over the riverwalk because I mean, yeah, that stuff's important, but it's doesn't have the the gravitational pull that the Spurs have. You know what I mean? And without the Spurs, we really don't have a whole lot left.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:28

Well Zed, let me uh let me uh shift gears here. Um Spurs Jesus. Any negative impact of uh mockery of hey man, you're mocking Jesus, uh you're taking your outfit and that shouldn't be aligned with uh a Spurs Jesus, man. You should you should not incorporate that?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:47

I mean, uh of course, and like I mentioned, there's many times where uh my brand and character has you know has had moments of virality, you know, where you get lots of people who maybe are introduced to the brand for the first time uh or to the character for the first time, or people who maybe don't follow me because they're they're not uh they're not connected to me for some sort of reason. Um you might get somebody saying, like, oh, this guy's ridiculous, this is blasphemous or whatever, you know, like these shouldn't be there's only one Jesus and all that. But uh, you know, we all know how people speak on social media, you know, people like to hide behind screens and keyboards and say whatever they want, um, or just type anything just to get a you know, a chain of comments or some reaction. Um but do people ever say that to my face? No, you know, I'll tell you what, the only one one person that has, or I don't want to say the one person, but like uh the one person who really said something to me uh was this little old Hispanic lady. Uh you know, I'm Hispanic too, but a little old Hispanic lady uh at a Spurs game, and she was like, You're not my Jesus. And I was like, uh, you know, it's okay. You know, but uh God bless you. But I am the Spurs. I'm sorry you feel that way, but go Spurs go. Uh but I mean, yeah, I mean again, you know, one my thing is look, I mean, I know that uh everybody's got their beliefs. Some people have beliefs stronger than the others, um, you know, and that my character can be polarizing if you want to look through it, look at it through that lens. Um, but even though I'm dressed this way, I'm not trying to be Jesus. I will say I'm trying to be as respectful of Jesus as I can. You won't see Spurs Jesus, you know, walk into a strip club or something like that. I mean, you know, I'm just I have boundaries. Also, you know, mentioning the politics thing, I understand that dressing and portraying, I guess, this character of Spurs Jesus, uh, you kind of have to walk a fine line like a politician. You know what I mean? I'm always trying to make sure that um I greet everybody that I meet with a handshake or a hug, uh, that I make time to stop for a picture with anybody that wants one or have a conversation with anybody who wants one, and uh, you know, make sure I'm not doing anything that would be questionable or inappropriate, um, or could be seen as like a I don't know about that, you know. Um but that's also one of the coolest things to me uh about the brand and the character is those, you know, like I said about me and making time to have a conversation with people. I've gotten to meet so many people in our community and and have actual, like real moments with people. I mean, hundreds and hundreds, I'm thousands, I would say, of San Antonians that um have been really powerful uh moments with members of our community and just getting to meet so many members of our community where if this hadn't organically happened to me, you know, then I would never have been able to reach that many people, you know, or have interactions, true interactions with that many people. So it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:59

I want to get too personal, man, and if we can skip if we need to. What is uh your personal background when it comes to religion?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:05

Um growing up, you know, uh we were we were you know, my dad would take us uh to church, Catholic, you know, growing up. Um and like I said, my my parents when I was younger got divorced probably around the age of 10, you know, out of that after that. Um I th I don't know why we we stopped going to church so much. Um, but my dad moved away um and my mom kind of had to had a hustle. So um we didn't go to church as much, and so we kind of ended up just being finding our own individual ways of of believing or having faith um or practicing faith in the way that we did. So, you know, I like to say I'm a spiritual, spiritual person, you know, I I uh have my own conversations with God and see God in different ways um around me in in my day-to-day life and in you know uh the universe. Um but for from a Spurs Jesus standpoint, I like to say my you know my place of worship is the Frostbank Center. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:08

I was actually gonna ask you, have any churches tried to reach out to do collabs or like they have. Um I don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:14

Um you know, respectfully of I've had lots of churches ask me to come out and do um, you know, be a part of a play or be just part of a special day that they have or you know, just meet their uh followers or whatever, you know. Um for me, I I try to see it through a um like a fish lens, you know what I mean? Look at everybody, you know, um and just because one person or a few people thought think that that might be a good idea for me to come out, you know, uh that to me that your place of worship is somewhere I don't wanna I don't want to cross that line and and possibly offend somebody else that that doesn't think that what I do is you know tongue in cheek or fun or or uh motivational. Um so I yeah, I'd I don't like to to go there. You know, if people want to hang out with me, let's I'll host a watch party for a game or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:07

I think we need a uh Spurs nun and Spurs Jesus collab next year, next season.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:11

You know, I have so I I have a picture of me with the nuns from like 2016. Uh same nuns or same group, different nuns. Right. Um but yeah, I've I know I've everybody's everybody was telling me that this playoffs like you gotta figure out how to get with the nuns. And I'm like, well, I mean, I I like the nuns, but I don't want to try to like weasel my way into their spotlight. I mean, they're they're having their moment. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:36

Well now the season's over, unfortunately. Maybe the opening next game, that'd be pretty cool. Yeah, that'd be cool. Bless the game, best the season.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:41

You know, a good a good friend of mine drove them to the game. He's like uh like a private driver, and he he drove them to the game. It was pretty funny.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:49

Well, a good friend of ours, um, Sherry the Barber is actually the one that got him to that Spurs game uh that put him in contact with the tickets and made the gold fund me and actually made that happen. So we went to explore the beginning and opening game of of the next season, and that'd be pretty cool to put together, man. Yeah, I'm down. Let's talk about some Spurs history, man. Spurs Jesus, top five Spurs players. Top five Spurs players. I mean Spurs Jesus' vision, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:12

Yeah, I mean it's pretty simple. I mean Wemby, Wemby already, uh Tim, David, uh, and then I gotta say Tony Amano.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:25

Forgotten Spurs player. Who's one of the most underrated forgotten Spurs players?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:29

Vinny Del Negro. Vinny Del Negro.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:32

Vinny Del Negro.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:33

Avery, Avery Johnson was good. Avery Johnson.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:36

Who forgot about Avery Johnson? That's true. Vinny Del Negro.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:39

Yeah, Vinny Del Negro. Let me ask you something. You ever thought about investing in real estate but assumed he needed perfect credit? A huge savings account or a bank willing to say yes? That's exactly why we're excited to partner with our guy Mike Leva at Conventus. Conventus is a real estate lender built specifically for investors and not homeowners. They help people fund deals like fix and flips, buy and hold rentals, and even ground up construction. And here's the part most beginners don't realize Conventus doesn't lend based on your W-2 income or your personal credit score. They focus on the deal itself, the value of the property, and the numbers behind it. That means investors can often access higher loan amounts and more flexible terms than a traditional bank, sometimes with rates that are more competitive than people expect. So instead of asking, do I qualify? The better question becomes, is this a good deal? If you're serious about getting to real estate investing and want a funding partner that truly understands investors, reach out to our go-to guy at Conventus, Mike Leva, today using the link in the show notes and see how real estate investors are actually getting deals funded. Courtside, you said you said courtside a couple times, that's an experience. Uh the last seven games I've been to, it's been all courtside. And it's such a different experience to sit courtside. Um, and that experience it's really cool. You said you had your buddy that put you in um those seats. Yeah. You said he had private jet Pittman rides. Yeah. Was that like a TV show or was that just no TV show should be like I just referenced it like that. It would be a cool TV show. That would be a cool TV show. That'd be something we want to see. That'd be something people want to see.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:13

Yeah. You know, uh, it's been cool, man. I mean, you know, the sitting courtside thing has been like, I mean, just a dream. A dream come true. I mean, for any sports fan. But like 2014, for example, I sat courtside for game one of the NBA finals. That was the the uh broken AC game. Oh, really? Yeah. Um that's when LeBron cramped up. That was epic, really cool game. Um, and then I got to sit second row right next to Miami's bench for uh game five when we won the championship. And so that was epic. Um, you know, I have a picture of LeBron when he when they subbed him out at the end of the game, and he's talking to Udanis Haslum, the picture I took, and uh I posted and I put the caption Um if anybody's looking for beachfront property in Miami, you know, I'm pretty sure LeBron's leaving him because I could just tell by his demeanor and the conversation that he was done. And then the next year he goes to Cleveland. Um but yeah, when we won the championship, the uh Spurs staff invited me and my buddy to stand on the court. And they when they brought the championship hats out to give to the players, they gave me and my buddy one, which was really sweet. That's so cool. Um, but super epic. I mean, that's like bucket list number one moment is to watch your favorite team win the championship and be in the building for that moment. So, you know, I got to catch confetti and all that. That was really cool. Um speak speaking of the players, uh, get to interact a lot a lot with them? Um I've met I've met a lot of them through the years. Um, I don't get to interact a lot with them. Um I haven't been sitting courtside as much lately uh as I would like. Um we actually sat courtside um on New Year's Eve. My wife's company that she works for, the her, their owners um have courtside seats, and so they gave her the seats for New Year's Eve, and so we went uh and Steph Castle actually fell out of bounds on me and spilled my beer all over me, which was cool. And we and we just happened to be playing the Knicks uh for that game. He was trying to block Jalen Brunson's shot, and but it was cool. I was I had just gotten these uh Oakley meta glasses and I was filming, and so I got a really cool video of that and the beer going all over me. It was it was a it was a good a good a good moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:25

What is your relationship officially, I guess, with the Spurs? Have they ever reached out to you? Have y'all had any conversations about doing official like partnerships partnerships, or will you come on board as a I mean, obviously the coyotes owned by the Spurs, right? But have you all had any kind of talks about how that would possibly work or if that's even a thing?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:42

I mean, you know how the you know the coyote was created by a fan, right? I know that uh yeah. A fan created the character.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:48

It's a competition, wasn't it? Wasn't it a competition?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:49

I don't know if it was competition or not, but a fan created it and then the Spurs ended up adopting it, you know, back it might have been a competition because I know I know the naming the Spurs was a competition. Um But uh yeah, so back in 2015, I mentioned it earlier in the show when I had created that t-shirt with um the creator, the artist Robert Tatum, um, and it said Go Spurs Go on it. When that happened, um, that was in 2012. When in 2015, after the kind of virality of the NBA finals, 2015, the NBA had combed through my Facebook page and uh found that sure, but rather than contacting me, they just like shut down my Facebook. So like the next day I wake up and like my Facebook page was gone. And by this point, I had built a pretty built a pretty good following and I was like, oh my gosh, what the heck happened, right? Uh and I had no contact with anybody, anything like that. Right. So the next day, I just happened to be going to a Spurs game. Uh, another buddy of mine had courtside seats and invited me to sit courtside, and I held a sign that said, Facebook, I forgive you, right? Uh and yeah, yeah. And so the next day, or I guess later that, well, yeah, the next day, um the news had ran an article about like Spurs Jesus holds a sign, and they had asked me like what happened, and I told them what happened. Uh, anyways, I get a call from the Spurs, and the Spurs, they you know, it's their head attorney, and he's like, hey man, you know, sorry about your Facebook page. Like, we could have finessed that a little bit better. Uh basically the NBA's attorneys contacted us because the NBA owns, it's not the Spurs, the NBA owns the rights to all the teams and all their trademarks and things like that, right? So the NBA told us you had, you know, this Go Spurs Go thing and we had to take it down. We should have just told you to delete that post rather than turn it off your Facebook page. We'll get your Facebook page back. You know, sorry about that. Let's talk about partnership, right? And so they sent me a contract to become part of the team. And the way it read to me, uh, I didn't think it was that good of a deal, right? Um, and I had some attorneys look it over and they kind of said the same thing. Um, and this is where I going back at it, you know, going back and looking at it, I wish I had spent more time and done more due diligence with that moment in time because recently I've had contact and communication, we had a meeting a few months ago with the Spurs about partnership and what that would look like in the future, and if there is anything there and how I could maybe be contributing to the team, you know, now that we have the jackals and things like that. Um and in that conversation, him and I basically discovered that they thought that since I didn't accept that contract back in 2015, that I like blew them off, basically, you know. And uh you know, I we talked it out and I basically said, listen, if I ever made the Spurs feel like I blew y'all off, like I that it was a horrible, you know, moment and for me because I didn't mean you know, I never meant to make them feel that way, because obviously that's the last thing that I would want to do. Um and so, anyways, because of that moment, you know, basically 10 years went by where we could have maybe had a partnership, you know, and didn't because I didn't follow up appropriately with that. So um I would say if you ever from a business standpoint, a piece of advice is if you ever have something that you're not certain about that could be something, you know, catalytic for your business, um, do the due diligence and don't be afraid to follow up and ask those questions because look, I mean 10 years have passed. And you know, I'm also a believer of everything happens for a reason, so maybe that that had to happen to help my brand get to where it is now and be more developed and valuable or whatever. But uh but then I go back and think about well, what if what what if we could have been partners for the past 10 years? But but yeah, so long answer. Um, I think that we might be maybe starting to flirt with the idea of of what that could look like as a as a partnership. At least I hope so.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:53

Definitely a way to stay optimistic about it, man. And you know, now I'm talking to you with this podcast, and it's really cool to see that you have that fine line between what it comes to the the real Jesus, obviously, and you pick and choose your battles and understand, hey, you still have a Jesus portrayed character. So it's really cool that I see you take that responsibility to heart and really pick and choose and really not only uh promote the Spurs, but of course Jesus behind the scenes, man. So that's that's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:16

I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:17

Uh I got a question for you, man. I always end this podcast because this this question helps me characterize who this person is. And I have an idea what your answer is gonna be, but I just gotta hear. What is Spurs Jesus' favorite movie?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:29

Jeez, man, my favorite movie? That's hard to say. That's like saying it's like saying, What's your favorite? Spurs. I mean, that's tough, dude. Give me one.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:38

Give me an example. Give me that's hard.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:40

For some reason I thought you were gonna say 300. No, no. That's so tough.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:51

Really, I really, I mean, I'm that's every special guy. I'm a big movies guy, man. I have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:54

I'm I'm super into I'm super into movies, I'm super into um, you know, uh TV series. I mean, we watch stuff all the time, and I'm like a creative, so I'm constantly thinking about cool stuff like that. So it's hard to say, man, really. I mean, growing up when I I feel like there's also phases of life, you know what I mean? Eras of your life. Yeah, you know, growing up in my in my football player era, I mean, I loved any given Sunday. I would like why that would watch that before every game we played, and you know, that kind of stuff. Um one movie I've always loved, I just think it's a great movie, is Ali. Um that's a good movie. Um I'm I love Aliens, so Independence Day is always a great movie. Will Smith then, huh? Yeah. Ali and Independent.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:39

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:40

Will Smith there. Uh yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's just so hard, dude. I mean, I love all the I love all the all the Avengers movies.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:47

I mean I was I was hoping I thought you referenced 300 quite a few times. I mean I love 300. Yeah, 300 quite a few times, and I don't know. Basketball is like coach, maybe he's a big basketball movie guy. Yeah. Coach Carter or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:57

You know, there's not really that many, to me, great basketball movies, you know. That's why that's why I go Coach Carter. That's really the only one. You remember the air up there? Which one? The air up there. The air up there. You never saw the air?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:12

That's 80s, right? 80s, 90s? I think it was 90s.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:14

Right, yeah, that's got to be. Kevin Bacon and like he goes to like a tribe and like finds this, like yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:20

Yeah, the tribe and they play basketball. He's teaching it. Yeah, yeah. That's old school, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:23

Yeah, that's a good basketball movie. For my day. But yeah, that's old school. All right. What's your favorite movie?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:28

My oh. I like Back to the Future. Okay. Back to the Future. I just like the whole thoughts process of the concept of going back and forth, all the Easter eggs throughout it. Yeah. That's really cool. Okay. Yeah, so I'm up to Back to the Future today.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:39

Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump. It's such a classic movie. Wow. For no reason other than it's just a great classic American movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:46

Okay, favorite Spurs player of all time.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:48

Everyone wants to go to the Tim Duncan, right? I mean, I think it's just iconic, right? It depends on your error, right? You can ask someone who's George Garvin. I think people say George Garvin out of respect, right? I just think his era has passed so far along. You know, you ask kids nowadays, you're all gonna say Wimby. I think it just depends on the person you're asking their generation.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:04

But I'm asking you.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:05

Yeah, but they have to go straight with Tim Duncan. And people are wondering who's number 23. I don't want people on this podcast like, hey, you got Tim Duncan, right? Yeah, you got Tim Duncan, and who's this m who's a Mike wearing number 23? This is a custom jersey. There you go. 23, obviously, Jordan. Yeah, one of the best of all time. Back with this jersey says Hustle. There you go. He's got my own Mr. Hustle jersey, but I'm gonna have to go with Tim Duncan.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:25

So why is Tim Duncan your favorite player?

SPEAKER_03 1:35:27

I just think the iconic individual. I like that how he didn't take the stardom to hit to his anything whatsoever. He showed up in sandals and flip-flops, he wore whatever baggy clothes he wanted to wear. The behind the stuff scenes, uh obviously being one of the greatest basketball players of all time, but easily top five, easily top ten for whoever's watching. Um but easily top five Spurs player when it comes to true fun uh fundamental basketball. But the person behind it, Tim talking, man, didn't care about the spotlights, didn't want to do the interviews. He's just here to play uh good Spurs game, and he's here San Turn all the time. He invests, he has a blackjack here, um he gives back and just an overall person.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:01

Same and pretty pretty much for the same reason. He's so Tim's the the favorite for me. Watched him, you know, the whole career, and seeing him on and off the off the uh court and what he does for the city, the way he portrays himself, the way he, like you said, wasn't searching for the limelight, very low-key, very humble, very uh much of a team player, pouring back into the new guys when they would come in, really helping build up the guys. I mean, he was obviously part of the the big three that we had, and so really building that brotherhood with those those other guys, and just the way he portrayed himself as a human being and not taking himself so serious. I feel like a lot of these guys just take themselves so serious and think that they're especially when they're at the top of their game and at the top of the league. And you know, I'd for and that's I think that that's helped the Spurs throughout our last 20-25 years, right? And so even getting guys like Wemby, they still reference the culture of the Spurs. So really building that culture that the Spurs have even till today, I think was a big part, you know, him and pop. Um, and so I think for the for those reasons he's he's definitely up there.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:00

All right, I got another question from kickback at y'all.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:02

Real quick before we go to that, because I just something sparked. Tim Duncan, we talked about error. Who's the new guy we just uh drafted? Uh how is what's his name again?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:09

Jaden Quintens.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:10

Quintins. Yeah. He just went viral today because I guess he did an interview yesterday. Yeah, yeah. And he asked something about you know the Spurs player. And he goes, Oh yeah, my grandpa's favorite Spurs player was Tim Duncan.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:19

So we're definitely going past the next generation. He wore number 21. He wore number 21. Yeah. And they asked him, like, you know, you know you're not gonna wear it. He's like, yeah, they shut that down right away.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:28

That's definitely not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:29

But all right, so the uh big news from Spurs land recently outside of the drafts was that the silver dancers are making a return. How do you guys feel about that?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:37

I think it's necessary. I think so. I mean, it's just I don't know, I think so. I mean, every team you gotta have entertainment, you gotta have a projection, it goes back into economy, it goes back to the rah-rah. I mean, you got the jackals, right? Jackals are cool, yeah. Um, which is on in the stands. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I'm fine, but what do you think? I think it's great. That's great. Okay, I think we need it.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:54

Yeah, I think we need it. I I don't know why. I mean, I I've I've heard lots of uh rumors about why they went away in the first place. I don't know. I don't feel like they, you know, they should we're we're we're one of the best, best, best basketball teams in the league, if not the best, one of the best teams in all the sports, one of the most storied teams in all the sports. And like, you know, it's it's the Lakers, you know, have the Lakers girls and created that, you know, because it's the big show. We have the big show in San Antonio. We should have all the things that make it feel like that big presentation when you come to a Spurs game. So absolutely, I'm all about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:29

So I think they just had the the tryouts, what, a couple days ago, right? Yeah. Yesterday and the day before.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:32

It's been what? It's been almost eight years, ten years since they got rid of them. It's been a while. Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. I think it was that whole political time where everybody was, oh, you're objectifying women, Me Too movement, and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:42

And so I think also I think a lot of our the majority of our season ticket holders back then were primarily seniors. Um and I feel like a lot of them were like not a fan of the silver dancers. And I feel like now a lot of our that's that's changed a lot. Yeah. Our our season ticket holders are skewing much more.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:02

Even with that though, it'd be like, are you gonna stop, are you gonna ban all schools from running cheer programs? Like it's just something America does. It's one of our things, it's it's it's you know, to us to the core. We have cheerleaders at football games and basketball games, and that just you know, it is what it is. And can you dress them differently if you want to? Sure, have that conversation if that's a conversation. But to tell them, like, hey, I know people who've personally danced for the the silver dancers and other, you know, the cowboys and stuff like that. They live for that's their life. They train for this stuff, like it's a sport, they sacrifice their life, they sacrifice their college and and high school years, they you know are on the strict diets or in the gym. They take it so, so, so seriously. And then it's a stepping stone to then maybe go to doing a Broadway player, maybe doing different kind of dance or whatever their their passion is around it, but you're taking away almost somebody's whole career or their stepping stone of their career just because you don't like, you know, maybe what it represents or what you think it represents. And so I don't know, I just think it's a bad bad look to get rid of it. So I'm glad that they're bringing it back.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:58

I feel you.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:58

You asked us who our favorite Spurs player, man. What about Spurs Jesus, man? Because you got a lot of eyeballs on you right now. Spurs Jesus' favorite Spurs player of all time.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:05

You know, oh again, that's so hard, man. You know, uh I feel like I'm uh very much so have eras of Spurs Jesus, you know. Uh when I first started, I it was as a kid, my favorite Spurs player forever was David Robinson. He's still like my top, you know, always hold a piece. He was my first Spurs jersey ever, you know. Um so always David Robinson. And then when I became, you know, Spurs Jesus and was sitting courtside, I was there for a lot of the great Tim Duncan's moment moments, had a lot of interactions with Tim Duncan. So of course uh that was really cool. Um, but it's Wemby, man. It's Wimby. Yeah, because uh let's go. Uh I'm I'm very excited to share this new era of my life with my son and watch him watch him, you know, when we when we won that draft lottery, we took our son honking for the first time back in 2023. Uh you know, he was four. Um, so it's really cool. I was worried for a while that um my son wouldn't fall in love with the Spurs the way that I did because you know, when the big three phased out and we went through kind of that drought, um who who would be that next, you know, gravitational care player that would make my son fall in love with the team like David did for us and Tim did for so many. Um and so once that's why when we got Wimby, it meant so much. I was like, okay, man, like we're back on every aspect, we're back. Um but yeah, that's that's what I would say. Um I got a I got one, I know we're running out of time, but I got one story for y'all that I haven't told anybody yet, right? So excited for this one. Yeah, so after uh game five of the finals, I hosted a watch party for game five of the finals at the Hotel Contessa downtown on the Riverwalk. Um awesome, awesome setup, awesome party. Of course, not the outcome we wanted, right? Well, we had a room there, we were staying at the room, so we went back to the room, uh, soaked for a little bit. I changed into into normal Spurs gear. Um, and we were trying to figure out it was me and my wife and our uh and her parents, and we were drinking our sorrows away in the hotel room and trying to figure out what we were gonna do. Should we go out? We just wanted to stay home and be bummed out. Well, there's a bar across from the hotel called Howdy Sore Loser, right? And so I was like, you know what, let's go there. I was like, I'm feeling like a sore loser. Let's go to howdy sore loser. So we walk across the street. Howdy sore loser, the first floor is a sports bar. Uh, and then the second floor is like a honky tonk kind of dance, dance club, you know, country dance club. That's why it's howdy sore loser. So we walk into the first floor and it's all every everybody in Spurs gear and like everybody's sad, and I'm I'm like frustrated. I'm like, I don't want to be around all these people. Let's just go up to the the country bar, right? And so we go up to the country bar and there's nobody up there. There's like six people up there, right? Uh, but I'm trying to order me and my wife a drink, and I'm not paying attention to anything. My wife comes up to me and she's like, babe, babe, look over at the bar. She's like, I think that's Michael Che. And I was like, what? And I was like, no, it's not, right? And so then I look again and I'm like, that's freaking Michael Che from Saturday Night Live, right? Um, and so I go over and talk to him. He's standing there by himself. Super cool dude. We ended, I mean, it is Michael Che. And then we're standing there, we're talking about Saturday Night Live. He's talking about his first, you know, his favorite Saturday Live moments. Of course, we're talking about the Nick and Knicks and the Spurs game. Uh, but he was just a cool down-to-earth dude. We ended up hanging out with him for like 45 minutes. He brought us a round of shots. Uh, and uh I asked him to follow me. And I was like, the least you can do, man, for y'all winning the championship. I was like, follow me on social media, right? And he's like, no, man, I can't. He was like, I only follow one account. And he shows me an account and he's only following the Knicks. And I'm like, Bro, I was like, I was like, I was like, that hurts even more, bro. Uh but no, he ended up telling me, you know, we just shared a lot of really cool stories.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:00

Did you identify yourself? Huh? Yeah, identify yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:03

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, he knew, yeah, we we talked about it. Uh and my wife was wearing a Spurs Jesus jersey, and so he was like, that's super cool. But yeah, so, anyways, we were talking about he told me the story that he remembered the first NBA player he ever met. Uh he and him and his family, when he was six years old, went to the NBA Hall of Fame and ran into Sean Elliott there. And I was like, That's pretty cool, man. What a small world! But but yeah, pretty cool, you know, talking about earlier, bringing all the celebrities that are coming into town. Uh that definitely made me lifted my spirits a little bit, you know, hanging out with Michael Chen. As much as it could.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:35

Yeah, yeah. I have one last question for you. I cannot even imagine all the Spurs gearies you've collected in the last 15, 20 years. What does a collection like yours look like? What's I mean, you could probably build the most iconic Spurs room in a house or in a museum or something. I mean, you probably have the most crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:53

It's pretty stupid, man. I gotta I have a lot of stuff. Um I got a lot of Spurs basketball cards. I've got, I mean, no, no kidding, I probably have over a hundred different Spurs hats. I mean, I have a Spurs hat for like every occasion. This is my this is my Olympics slash World Cup Spurs hat. Nice. Yeah, take that into consideration. Yeah, it's uh you remember the Dream Team? This is like the Dream Team logo, but in Spurs, Spurs style. Um, I mean, I have probably hundreds of Spurs shirts. Um, I like to create a lot of stuff, so I have a lot of one on one of one stuff. Like, you know, I like to wear, I like to make clothes that I can wear that like have really cool Spurs hints or or things about them, but that don't necessarily look like you're wearing Spurs gear. You know, so I have a bunch of cool stuff like that. Um, I have a lot of Spurs art. People have given me a lot of really cool Spurs art over the years, um, and then just a ton of stuff collected. I've always collected newspapers on my own, and then my uh grandmother-in-law gave me a bunch of newspapers she's been collecting for decades. Um and then Spurs fans, you know, are are fantastic, and I mean that. Like we're we're such a cool family. Spurs family is a real thing. Like when I when we first had our son, one of my followers reached out to me on social media and said, Hey man, you know, I have a bunch of Spurs jerseys that I had for my kid, and my kid outgrew him. Like, I want you to have them. And he ended up giving us like 10 Spurs jerseys for my son, and like Tim's and Tony's and David Robinson jerseys, and yeah, so that's really cool. Um, I ran into this lady the other day, you know, older, older lady, she's probably in her 70s, uh, and she was like, I have all this Spurs stuff I've collected my whole life, and I don't know what to do with it, but I bet you would like it. Like, you want all this stuff I've got? I've got newspaper click things and cards and coins and stuff. And I was like, sure, I'll take it, you know. Um, so stuff like that. Um, but yeah, I have I have a ton, a ton of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:50

Speaking of business ideas, uh so my main thing I love, I'm a marketer, I'm a creative, I love to put things together, build things, and market them and see them come through. I could see you opening like a downtown Spurs Jesus gift shop where part of it is selling merchandise, but part of it's also like the rare collectible 101 stuff that you have. So it's a it's a place to come look at you know stuff from the decades, but then at the same time buy. So I don't know, maybe in the future put something together. Yeah and then you could also donate to your your uh your foundation there, too. So I don't know, something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:21

Well, you know, there's uh like so something that we're talking, we talked about you know the the next the next move, the next chapter of the Spurs Jesus brand and business aligning with the next chapter of you know the Spurs timeline and what's going on with the team right now and what will be going on for the next 10-15 years. Um there's a cool bar downtown, um, or like on the downtown east um called Charity Bar, and you know, portions of their proceeds benefit a different local um nonprofit that they've selected for that time period. Um so I always thought opening a Spurs Jesus version of something like that that was sort of like sports bar slash place that people could come shop because I have a lot of really cool, like I said, Spurs stuff that I've created. Yeah. Um that I feel like if I could get licensed by the NBA, which is something that's on my radar to do, um, because obviously I can't sell stuff that's illegal. You know, you gotta be you gotta be trademarked or licensed. Um, but we could have some really a really cool shop with some really cool uh local things. Like one of the things that I've created that I get a lot of compliments on, and people always ask me, how do I buy those? Where'd you get that? And I I made it and I can't sell it yet. And so I but I have Spurs mariachi pants that I made. Um and should be a thing, dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:38

It's a totally good thing. Yeah, I didn't I forgot about this. So I used to own a nightclub a few years back, and uh every time we'd bring in a big artist, uh our gift to them was a custom Spurs jersey. So we have Chantel Jeffries had a spur custom Spurs jersey, Sean Kingston has a custom Spurs jersey. Nice Brody Jenner, Soldier Boy. So it was really cool. It was one of our cool, I mean, because what do you give somebody that has, you know, they're coming to the show. Yeah, they're coming to do a show and they see a bunch of different things. How can you make them stand out? So we would give our little touch of San Antonio by creating them a custom jersey. That was pretty cool. I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:07

That's cool. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:09

Well, we definitely cover a lot, man, and it's cool to see how being humble beginnings took you from where you're at today and turning a content individual when it comes to branding Spurs Jesus. And I'm always fascinated about the business side and how you really came from a long way. And of course, like I said earlier, taking that fine line between Jesus and Spurs and putting that your own good morals on it, and to see how you're real passionate about the Spurs, how you're passionate about the community, the impact of the San Antonio, it really means a lot to me. I'm glad we had you on this podcast. This is the Turn Up the Hustle podcast, and to me, Spurs Jesus, turn up the hustle is not a bottle, it's not a slogan, it truly is my way of life. When Spurs Jesus thinks of turn up the hustle, what does turn up the hustle mean to Spurs Jesus?

SPEAKER_00 1:49:51

I mean, I think I think it speaks for itself. I mean, you know, turn up the hustle, uh, it's like take it to the next level. I mean, you know, turn your turn your grind up uh turn it up a notch. Um and I think that that's uh, you know, if you live every every day that way, you know, that's uh the best way to get to your goals as fast as you can. Turn up the hustle.

unknown 1:50:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:13

Well, dude, we really, really appreciate it. This has been probably the fun I know it's been the funnest podcast we've ever done. I think we're genuine, yeah. I think we're genuine. I think we're genuinely just curious about all your history and your background. And so it's so fun. And it's fun to see that you've been doing this for 16 years. And from me, just from an outsider and a marketer, I feel like it's almost like still just the beginning. You still have so much more that you can accomplish, so much more you can do, especially with the run that the Spurs are about to go on. I feel like you have a huge, huge golden opportunity in front of you from your business standpoint, and then also from an impact standpoint, like you said, with doing the charity and and stuff like that. So I am so excited to see your next uh your next phase and how it goes for you. And and we're here to help any way we can. We'd love to love to be a part of anything you'd like to do. So I appreciate it. But again, we appreciate the time, appreciate you coming on. Um, for people who have never come across you before, obviously they can just look up Spurs Jesus. Is there any official website or or Instagram tags?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:03

Yeah, I mean, you can find me um on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all at Spurs Jesus. Um, I I have a YouTube channel that I haven't put a lot of stuff on. I I think that's part of something that's on my my kind of uh vision board for moving forward is to really get some more content uh and and YouTube focused content out. Um and then I have SpursJesus.com uh also on my to-do list is to um re-redo my website. So if you go to my website right now, it's not active, but um you can find find anything you need from me at SpursJesus on Instagram or Facebook. And then, of course, every once in a while, if you want to check that link, I'm sure I'll be doing an announcement about when my website will be live and my podcast will be back. So uh, but other than that, you know, order some taco polanque, order uh order some Papa John's with promo code SJ40, you know. And then who knows, maybe we'll be having some World Cup watch parties here soon. Oh, that'd be cool. Awesome. That'd be cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:03

Yeah. Well, you heard it from the man himself. Follow him, go follow his journey. We're excited to see what he does. We're excited for the city of San Antonio and excited for our Spurs. But we really appreciate you guys tuning in each and every week to the Turn Up the Hustle podcast. We try trip tried to provide as much value as we can each and every week to make sure that you're getting uh value out of this and entertainment at the same time. So if you do, make sure you hit that like, subscribe, follow, comment on the episode. And as always, as always, turn up the hustle. We will see you guys on the next one. Peace. Peace. Go, Spurs, go.