406: The $156B Economic Power of Private Clubs w/ Joe Trauger, NCA

Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs From mastering, leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light.

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Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place.

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I'm your host, denny Corby.

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Welcome to the show.

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In this episode I caught up with Joe Trauger, ceo of the National Club Association, to dig into the latest updates on private clubs and we talked the big takeaways from their brand new economic impact study done with club benchmarking, cmaa, club Management Association of America and the NCAA National Club Association.

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I mean we're talking billions in revenue, thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs and how clubs support, interact and engage with their local communities.

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We also talk about what those numbers and what all that means for advocacy.

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We talk about upcoming trends and the challenges clubs are facing and might be facing coming up for 2025.

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As always, we talk about all things club governance and NCA.

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Real quick, before we get to the episode, I'll be releasing my club entertainment guide very, very soon.

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All things club entertainment, putting on amazing, fun member events, tips, tricks, no pun intended, insights from other club professionals.

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If you would like early access, I am putting the final touches on and if you would like early access, an early copy of it, email me.

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Hello at privateclubradiocom.

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Subject line entertainment guide and I will make sure you are one of the first people to get it.

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Big thanks to some of our show partners kenneth's member vetting, golf life navigators and concert golf partners, as well as myself, denny corby, the denny corby experience.

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There's excitement, there's mystery.

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Also there's magic.

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But private club radio listeners, let's welcome back to the show our friend joe trauger since we last spoke spoke and I think we might have talked about it briefly, but I don't think we had the results yet.

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So we released the economic impact study of private clubs in conjunction.

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It was a study that was done in conjunction with Club Management Association of America, cmaa, and Club Benchmarking, the National Club Association, and you know I've talked about this at a couple of speeches that I've given to different groups and the thing that is really exciting about it from my perspective and looking at it from the perspective of, you know, the organizations that put it together is this is really going to help us drive additional research and additional data collection that will have a lasting impact on the industry going forward.

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So and I don't think it's hyperbole to say that this is the most comprehensive study, economic study that's been done on private clubs we have a lot of data, we have a lot of studies on the economic impact of golf, but that doesn't capture all of private clubdom right.

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I mean, you have city clubs, yacht athletic, all different types of clubs.

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So this is the first study where we really tried to at least that I'm aware of that really tried to fix that market and see how many private clubs are there across the country and what types of clubs are they?

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So what we found was there's about, I think, 5,687 private clubs in the United States, clubs in the United States.

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For our studies purposes, we focused on those clubs that have more than a million dollars in revenue, because the logic was that if you have more than a million dollars in revenue, the chances that you have full-time staff and professional staff, that kind of thing is much higher, whereas a million and below a lot of times it's the members that are doing the operations and just sort of collectively doing those together.

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Um, so if you narrow the that list of clubs um to those over a million dollars in revenue, there's 3,887 private clubs in the United States.

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Um, which it's.

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It's, you know, just knowing that number um from an advocacy standpoint, from an insight standpoint, from a governance standpoint, is really important and helps us as an organization better serve our members and us including CMAA and club benchmarking and their clients.

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So, 3,887 clubs with more than a million dollars in revenue.

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What does that mean for the economy?

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That means $32.6 billion in revenue that those clubs generate each year, and that's just the direct impact.

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And what does that mean?

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And when you say how far does that go, what do you mean?

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Like $32.6 billion?

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$32.6 billion in revenue annually means that's the revenue that goes into the building of those clubs, into those clubs.

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That's the revenue that they generate each year through dues, initiation fees, service fees and all that stuff.

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So that's just the direct impact.

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But if you take it further and look at the indirect impact, you're talking about multiples beyond that.

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Sorry, I'm going to have to refer some of the sort of headline numbers in memory.

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So, $32.6 billion in direct revenue and economic impact.

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You add the indirect impact, so that's the services and goods that clubs buy in their local communities, that adds another $22.5 billion.

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And then if you go to the induced impact, meaning what are the additional economic impacts of all of the activity around it, and you're up to around $156 billion a year and all of those most of that spending and insights to clubs about the market and what's happening.

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That's not an insignificant discovery, if you will, or factoid to know going forward.

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So next step what does it mean in terms of payroll?

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So there's, in the study it was determined that there's about 573,000 employees nationwide that are employed by private clubs and that equals to about $17.4 billion in wages that are paid every year.

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That equals to about $17.4 billion in wages that are paid every year.

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So that's a significant bucket of employees and payroll that private clubs are supporting and where that, from my perspective in the National Club Association, obviously one of our big pillars is advocacy, and being able to tell the story of private clubs is so important to members of Congress and Senate and the administration and agencies.

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Understanding the impact of legislation and regulation on the private club industry as a sector, and we've not been able to do that before, and now, going forward, we will be able to do that because of the study.

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So it's it's really um, it's really important work, and we we're just so pleased to be able to partner with cma and club benchmarking on this.

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I think it has huge implications for us going forward.

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Yeah I think it's cool that because when a lot of people maybe potentially, you know, when they think of private clubs, they almost you know there's a lot of exclusivity, a lot of like maybe potentially, you know, when they think of private clubs, they almost you know there's a lot of exclusivity, a lot of like luxury kind of attached, which you know there is and can be and depending on the club and the who, what, where, when, wise.

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But I like how this study kind of reframes clubs as a economic engine, right, which is which is which is really really cool.

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What, what were there?

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What?

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What do you think was like some of the most surprising stats or takeaways that Well, I think I don't know that there was a whole lot.

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That was really surprising, but I think it was nice to be able to quantify it.

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We think there's about 4,000 clubs.

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That's great and fairly accurate, but it's not empirical, it's not something that we can point to and say, hey, we've done the work on this and we've identified 3,887 clubs with more than a million dollars in revenue.

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It's just a much more authoritative and definitive way of explaining what the market is.

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So you know, I think another aspect of that we found and were able to again sort of confirm notions about private clubs was it was seen that 77 percent of those 3,887 clubs are member-owned nonprofit clubs.

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That's important to understand, because being able to understand what the largest segments of markets, what unique issues they have, all of those things go into how you present to a member of Congress or an agency on the impact of legislation or regulations.

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So 77% are member-owned nonprofits.

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You have 13% that are member-owned for-profit and then you have 10% that are private sorry, taxable third-, third party owned, so they might be owned by an individual or a collection of individuals.

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Um, so, again, being able to quantify, uh, where you know where folks sit in that specter of their tax status and those types of things is important too, too, as we, particularly as we go into next year and we will be having in Congress a very robust discussion about tax policy the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was passed in the first Trump administration in 2017 is up for renewal or expiration, or expiration, and so there's a lot of discussion about extending corporate tax rates or individual tax rates.

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There's also been some discussion about looking at nonprofits and the proliferation, or the perceived proliferation, of nonprofits and whether or not that's appropriate if they're acting like nonprofits or if they're just shielded by nonprofit law and actually generating, you know, acting more like a for-profit entity.

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So, again, being able to define the private club market, which has long long had a nonprofit designation to it, again helps us tell our story to members of Congress and why, you know, if there is a proliferation of nonprofits, it's not the private club side that is part of the problem, and so all of this stuff has real-world implications in the future for how we present our case to the members of Congress and the agencies.

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Now are some of those policies.

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Are there any other things that you're on the lookout for, or trends, that kind of things we should be looking out for, learning more about or keeping our eye on things?

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we should be looking out for, learning more about or keeping our eye on.

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Yeah, I mean, one of the things that's exciting about um again about this study is that this really just sets the baseline and it allows for us to look at different things in a different way, or a series of things in a different way, with much more empirical data data that we can move around.

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One particular aspect that I'm interested in and we're trying to see if we can do a little bit more deep dive study on it is the impact of private clubs on the real estate market.

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Private clubs on the real estate market Because you know, I think most people intuitively understand that if you have a home or a residence that's near a private club, they tend to be higher in value than if there wasn't a club there.

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Now you can get into a little bit of a chicken or egg kind of argument.

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You know, would they build the nice houses if the club wasn't there?

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Or you know all of that kind of stuff.

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But there is a correlation between property Would they build the nice houses if the club wasn't there, all of that kind of stuff but there is a correlation between property value and location or proximity to a private club or a golf course, that type of thing, through geolocation and you know, dive into the real estate markets.

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I think it gives us an opportunity to look at what that means relative to tax policy at the state level and the local level, because you know states and localities determine property taxes and you know clubs often are criticized for not paying as much in property taxes or you know a certain value as if that was real estate.

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And so what this potentially allows us to do is say, yeah, okay, there is a particular treatment of clubs and how they're taxed in the property, but if you tax them out of existence, essentially what you're doing is you're driving the value of the other properties around that club down and that has a follow um just how you tax clubs on the property taxes.

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So there's things like that that I think um are really important for us to be able to, to uh take this baseline study and iterate off of it Um and that'll have.

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Uh and that'll have, I think upside potential for us in the future.

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How long did the whole thing take?

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How long was the whole study?

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It was six or eight months total of work and, like I said, we did this in conjunction with CMAA and Club Benchmarking.

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Did this in conjunction with CMAA and club benchmarking.

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We went through Iowa State University and their academic department, you know, sort of looking at private clubs, and it was a great team and I think we arrived at some good data and it was all generated from some good data and it was all it was all generated from.

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Um you know things that we had already known, uh, about clubs, uh, specific clubs, um, and then also sort of combing through IRS data through form nine, nineties and and that kind of thing.

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So it it's really again um, the the most comprehensive and, I think, the most empirically sound economic impact study that's been done on the private club world, not just the golf world.

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Are there any untapped opportunities for growth?

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Now, kind of seeing and having data like this, like I don't know, is it like new regions expanding the club types Like what's what's the what's not like the next frontier?

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Yeah, I, I, I.

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I'm not sure how to answer that question.

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You know, I think it's largely to be seen what sort of economic activity could be generated or market analysis could be gleaned from this report.

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But that'll happen with time and we'll be on the lookout for it.

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Yes, yes, yes.

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What else you got cooking?

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Well obviously, or anything else.

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Uh, you want to talk about with the impact report or how people can find it?

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Edit, yeah, um.

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So I believe it is up on our website um and uh, or cmaa's website and uh.

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We.

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We have, uh, I believe, notices been sent out to all of CMAA's members and our members on it.

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We've done a couple of little briefings on it to some live audiences.

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But you know, I think the it's again it's just level setting and having a better understanding of what the market is and isn't helps us going forward.

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So from my perspective, it's really exciting and allows us to iterate, like I was talking about some general generalities that we can pull from the experience of.

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You know, if we look at a few different markets, I think we can make some assumptions based on that work.

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So again, we're trying to figure out how we can get that done and I think it has good implications for us, uh, in the future, us being the private club industry or private club community, um, but you know, beyond that um, clearly, since the last time we spoke, we've had an election Um and um.

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I you know I you know, I sent a note to my board the day before the election and I'd been holding off making any predictions.

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You know about the presidential race or you know I think it was pretty clear who was going to the presidential race, but I'd held off on that.

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Usually in the past I've had a fairly good read, I think, on what would happen, but this year was just so weird so many different things happening and new candidate with 107 days left to go in the campaign to assassination attempts.

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You know this economy that's.

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You know some people feel it's okay and you know people just feel crunched because of inflation and the ongoing effects of that.

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It was just a really difficult election to read, but anyway.

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So I sent a note to my board a day before the election.

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Just a quick update.

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This is what's going on with the association and if you press me on a prediction, here's my prediction, and I said that my view was that Trump would get somewhere between 286 to 302 electoral votes votes, but there was a potential that I saw of him overperforming and reaching as high as 312 electoral votes.

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He overperformed and got 312 electoral votes.

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The Senate was almost a foregone conclusion that the Republicans would take over.

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So that was fine.

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But the other thing was the House, and there was a lot of.

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You know it's a tough thing to try to crack because there's 435 individual races and personalities and that kind of thing.

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But I said that if Trump did overperform and got to 312 electoral votes, that he would have strong enough coattails to be able to to keep the house in control of Republicans.

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And that's uh, uh, appears to be what happened.

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So, um, a little late in making the prediction, but it was a prediction nonetheless.

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And um, so I think we were, you know, not not surprised by the result, but, um, sort of expected it.

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And you know, from an association standpoint, I think we're well positioned to represent private clubs in the new administration and the Republican majority in the Senate and the House.

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And you know that's been over the years of working with members of Congress on both sides.

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We were going to be fine regardless of Democratic control or you know that kind of thing, of the House or Senate.

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But yeah it's, I think we're well positioned.

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There's some issue sets, like I mentioned, the tax bill that is, we know is going to be a factor and something that we'll be working with members of the House and Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee, to you know, push for some tax-related legislation that we've been pushing for for years, one of which is the FIT Act, the Personal Health Investment Today Act.

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That would allow individuals with a health savings account to use up to $2,000 a year towards fitness-related activity, and I think we're well positioned to move that forward, potentially even this year, although I think the chances of that are dwindling.

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So there's that, the FIT Act, the SIN list, which is a list that is used to determine eligibility for disaster assistance and federal aid in those instances.

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That includes golf courses, along with strip clubs, liquor stores and that kind of stuff.

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Not sure why golf had to be lumped into that list, but it is what it is and we're trying to change it and so we'll likely see some movement.

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Whether we get to passage I don't know, but we definitely will be seeing some movement on that and and NCA will be, you know, pushing it as best we can.

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So that's the tax side where I think we're going to see the largest swing in in in the current administration to the next administration is really in the Department of Labor, and that's true regardless of it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

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It's like a pendulum that swings back and forth.

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When you have a Democratic administration, the Department of Labor is very active and kind of follows the union wish list, and then if a Republican administration comes in, the pendulum swings to the right and you have more business influence in the Department of Labor.

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Regulations tend to be slower coming, if they come at all, and more manageable from a business standpoint.

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Manageable from a business standpoint.

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It's a hell of a way to run a business when you've got to take into account the labor policy and HR policy based upon who's in the White House.

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But that's the system we've got, and when I was doing labor policy full time, it was something that I just would ruminate over and it just would be nice to get some stability and prevent that pendulum from swinging back and forth just based upon the election.

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Yeah, wasn't the nice.

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Is there something?

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It's one of those like I am, so not up to my knowledge on it, but isn't like overtime tax, isn't that a big, a big thing?

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Yeah, so the overtime threshold, yeah, overtime threshold, um, that's been a sort of saga for the last I think, I think we've even done like like episodes on it and it was something was coming, then, all of a sudden, now it's.

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I have no idea what's going on, so I figured yeah yeah, no, I appreciate that.

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And and um, yes.

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So there has been some movement on the overtime threshold.

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So the Trump administration, back in 2017, 18, revised the threshold up to thirty five thousand five hundred and eighty eight dollars.

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So that, just for folks who aren't familiar, the overtime threshold is it's the minimum salary that an employee needs to make in order to be considered exempt for overtime.

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So you know, you have that sort of floor for the threshold, but then, on top of that, you have what's called the duties test.

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So you know, are they operating independently?

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Do they manage other employees?

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There's other things that go along with determining whether or not they're exempt from overtime, but what the Obama administration tried to do in 2015 was take that threshold up to a number.

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I believe it was close to $50,000.

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The Eastern District of Texas, a US district court, vacated that rule because essentially, they said, the Obama administration, by setting that threshold so high, essentially made obsolete the duties test, which is part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and they can't do that because it's an end run on what has been adopted by Congress and their intention.

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So that was one of the arguments that we made and the Biden administration when they tried to do the overtime threshold.

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They increased it up to almost $60,000.

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And apologies, so the and by raising it up to $60,000, that minimum threshold, again it created that situation where they're completely making obsolete the duties test that's in the Fair Labor Standards Act and that was one of the things that we pointed out to the Department of Labor when we filed our comments is that, look, you already have case law on this and you're going right up against it.

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You're in jeopardy of this being vacated by the courts.

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I think we were actually cited in the agency's response to that question in the comment period and they just kind of patted us on the head and said thank you and appreciate it, but we're going to go ahead.

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Appreciate it, but we're going to go ahead.

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So anyway, last Friday the same court in Texas, east Texas vacated the rule nationally.

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So the rule that was going to go into effect part of it had already gone into effect in July, but the biggest tranche of increase in that threshold was going to happen January 1.

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Again, back up to $60,000.

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That's off the table.

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So now the income threshold is back down to $35,588, which is what it was prior to all of this nonsense happening.

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So from my perspective, from a policy standpoint, I certainly view that as an important victory and something that was of serious concern to me from a club operations standpoint and the impact on budgets, because you could see from the data that we collected with the economic impact study, $32.6 billion in revenue and $17.4 billion in wages.

00:27:46.517 --> 00:27:54.298
You know, anywhere from 40% to 55% of the club's budget is on payroll.

00:27:54.298 --> 00:28:03.519
So anything that you do to escalate that is really impactful on the operations and financial viability of private clubs.

00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:15.054
So, um, you, you know from again, from my perspective, it was an important victory and um, yeah, uh, there's other other rules.

00:28:15.453 --> 00:28:25.159
This is a dumb question Is it also a victory for the employees Like is that, like so, because I've never been in that position?

00:28:25.159 --> 00:28:30.926
Like I so, but from like a club, a club like so, from you know, if I'm a club professional, like am I?

00:28:30.926 --> 00:28:32.913
Is that good, is that bad?

00:28:32.913 --> 00:28:33.275
What's?

00:28:33.414 --> 00:28:33.615
Yeah.

00:28:33.615 --> 00:28:54.087
So here's, here's how I tried to explain it to the agency and I I was I actually was on a Zoom call with the deputy secretary before they put out their proposed rule and the example I gave them was that, look, let's say you have a club pro, you know golf pro.

00:28:54.087 --> 00:28:59.019
They have a salary of forty thousand dollars, just a straight salary.

00:28:59.019 --> 00:29:07.179
But where they really make their money is providing lessons and instruction, that kind of thing.

00:29:07.179 --> 00:29:20.300
And it's not uncommon for club pros to have $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 in instruction commissions over the course of a year.

00:29:20.300 --> 00:29:29.750
Well, what allows them to do that is, you know, they don't have to worry about their hours, they can schedule as much instruction as they want to handle or can handle.

00:29:29.750 --> 00:29:33.718
And you know it's a very seasonal, seasonal thing.

00:29:33.718 --> 00:29:41.106
So you sort of you work a lot, you know, during the warm months and then on the on the cooler months you're not.

00:29:41.106 --> 00:29:48.506
You know it's much more of a nine to five type environment, to the extent that's relevant in this industry.

00:29:48.506 --> 00:29:53.733
But, um, so you know where it has.

00:29:53.773 --> 00:30:10.119
The impact is all of a sudden, if you take that, that minimum threshold, up to $60,000, now that $40,000 employee that may actually be earning over $100,000 because of commissions, is subject to overtime.

00:30:10.119 --> 00:30:11.201
Well, what does that mean?

00:30:11.201 --> 00:30:15.772
That means that the club now will restrict the number of hours that employee can work.

00:30:15.772 --> 00:30:19.940
Because they don't want to pay overtime, right?

00:30:19.940 --> 00:30:21.431
So what does that do?

00:30:21.431 --> 00:30:34.788
Because they don't want to pay overtime, right?

00:30:34.788 --> 00:30:36.731
So what does that do?

00:30:36.731 --> 00:30:42.820
That that lowers the number of hours that that club pro is available to do continuing education and those types of things.

00:30:42.820 --> 00:30:50.886
It gets real dicey if you have, say, a conference or something that takes place over a course of a couple of days.

00:30:50.886 --> 00:30:55.215
How do you manage that time in order to not go into overtime?

00:30:55.215 --> 00:31:03.431
So then it creates, it makes it more difficult for junior employees to get that continuing education or education generally than it otherwise would be.

00:31:03.431 --> 00:31:11.272
So those are some of the things that we raised to the agencies and they, you know, in all of their wisdom, didn't listen to us.

00:31:12.355 --> 00:31:22.017
So, by virtue of the court vacating this rule, it took some pressure off of that um for for for our guys, which is important.

00:31:22.017 --> 00:31:23.680
Yeah, what else you got cooking?

00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:25.948
Uh, well, we're.

00:31:25.948 --> 00:31:36.753
You know um, in addition to the election, um, you know we're, we're gearing up um for new majorities, uh, in the house and the Senate next year.

00:31:36.753 --> 00:31:55.415
Uh, we're looking at doing some things a little bit differently in terms of how we do government relations and trying to get more member engagement with that, so kind of cooking up some ideas and schemes and how we can get that off the ground.

00:31:55.537 --> 00:32:11.153
And you know, outside of the government relations side, we're obviously continuing with the planning of our conference up in New York at the New York Athletic Club next April 27th through the 29th Going to be a fantastic event.

00:32:11.153 --> 00:32:17.758
I'm really looking forward to it, looking forward to, you know, getting back into private clubs and holding our conference there.

00:32:17.758 --> 00:32:21.265
So we'll be at the New York Athletic Club primarily.

00:32:21.265 --> 00:32:39.051
We'll also have our big Excellence in Club Management event at the University of New York, which is an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous facility, and so, yeah, we're 100% go on all of that and things are shaping up nicely.

00:32:39.644 --> 00:32:40.347
Cooking with gas.

00:32:40.347 --> 00:32:47.363
Actually no no, if we're doing good, good cooking, it's over uh, over a natural flame charcoal, right?

00:32:47.363 --> 00:32:49.788
Maybe it's not gas, maybe we're cooking with charcoal.

00:32:50.650 --> 00:32:51.551
Yep, yep.

00:32:51.551 --> 00:32:57.689
Whatever imparts the most flavor, we'll go with that Um.

00:32:57.689 --> 00:33:01.035
So yeah, it's, it's um, that's, uh.

00:33:01.035 --> 00:33:06.249
That's exciting and I think we'll have some really good speakers, some good panels.

00:33:06.249 --> 00:33:18.070
We're going to talk about H2Bs a little bit and succession, transitions and leadership things like that that I think are going to be really beneficial for folks in attendance.

00:33:18.770 --> 00:33:18.971
Nice.

00:33:18.971 --> 00:33:22.255
What's God sorry.

00:33:23.415 --> 00:33:23.955
No, that's fine.

00:33:23.955 --> 00:33:26.479
Did you have a question?

00:33:26.939 --> 00:33:34.730
No, I was just going to say like go into more detail if you wanted to, on just like the different topics and stuff that we're going to be at the conference, but it's probably still a little bit too early to.

00:33:34.884 --> 00:33:37.412
Yeah, we're still firming some things up.

00:33:37.412 --> 00:33:39.708
I think we have, you know we some things up.

00:33:39.708 --> 00:33:42.672
I think we have, you know we have topics that we're we're exploring.

00:33:42.672 --> 00:33:56.508
You know things like I already mentioned you know kind of the succession, successful transitions and leadership board development.

00:33:56.508 --> 00:34:25.806
We're going to hopefully be able to take a look at what's happening in the insurance market for clubs from some executives in that space and, yeah, just trying to make things as relevant and kind of deep dives into you know what clubs are wrestling with and we might be looking at some workforce issues, issues you know and, and you know, specific to recruiting.

00:34:25.806 --> 00:34:27.751
You know the talent and those types of things.

00:34:27.751 --> 00:34:30.217
So, um, yeah, we're, we're excited about it.

00:34:31.385 --> 00:34:46.440
Stay tuned state part two, indeed, of the recipe coming soon now I'll have more to share at our, our next, our next interlude, yeah, interlude.

00:34:47.021 --> 00:34:50.534
But no thanks, thanks for all you, you all do at the at the NCA.

00:34:50.534 --> 00:34:51.056
It's been what?

00:34:51.056 --> 00:34:54.672
60 or 80 years You've been helping, helping the industry.

00:34:55.005 --> 00:34:56.302
So 1961.

00:34:56.302 --> 00:34:57.909
Yeah, so 63 years.

00:34:58.713 --> 00:35:05.246
Yeah, yeah, yep, a couple just, a few just a few, just a little bit Yep and uh.

00:35:05.789 --> 00:35:18.338
So it's, um, yeah it, you know it's I've said this to a couple of people um, but strangely enough, 1961 features prominently in my life.

00:35:18.338 --> 00:35:24.413
Um, I have, obviously, the National Club Association, which was founded in 1961.

00:35:24.413 --> 00:35:35.257
The club that I belong to and was president of was founded in 1961 and my beloved Minnesota Vikings were formed in 1961.

00:35:35.257 --> 00:35:44.139
So I'm not sure why or how that happened, but it is an important year in my life, even though I wasn't born.

00:35:46.628 --> 00:35:51.045
And then the next Green Day album will be named 1961.

00:35:51.045 --> 00:35:54.413
And that's just when all hell breaks loose.

00:35:55.074 --> 00:35:55.295
Right.

00:35:55.295 --> 00:35:59.476
That's the point at which we reach singularity.

00:36:02.728 --> 00:36:04.715
That's when the stars are aligned.

00:36:04.715 --> 00:36:05.266
I don't know.

00:36:05.266 --> 00:36:05.969
The shock rose.

00:36:05.969 --> 00:36:07.414
Whatever people have yeah.

00:36:07.525 --> 00:36:15.364
You know, one of the things that I talked about last week, because it was fresh, was obviously the H2B situation.

00:36:15.364 --> 00:36:22.887
And those are, you know, that source of employees is important for clubs, you know, particularly up and down the Eastern seaboard.

00:36:22.887 --> 00:36:35.135
Um, but, um, you know, we're, we're, we're hopeful that the Biden administration just released an additional 64,000, uh visas, so that's helpful.

00:36:35.135 --> 00:36:46.260
Um, you know, the we're trying to stay on top of the department of Labor to make sure that those are processed in a way that's timely, which didn't occur in previous years.

00:36:46.260 --> 00:36:48.713
But we're hopeful that they've corrected some things.

00:36:48.713 --> 00:36:58.059
But you know, we've talked for years about potentially changing that program and really making it a more robust program.

00:36:58.059 --> 00:37:05.610
But unfortunately, I think we're entering into a majority in an administration where I think that's going to be much more difficult.

00:37:05.610 --> 00:37:32.980
And any issue I sort of view the H-2B program as kind of tangential to immigration, but it gets lumped into the immigration issue writ large and, as you can imagine, with the election and the results, you know, immigration issues are really almost singularly focused on the border and the illegal immigration population.

00:37:32.980 --> 00:37:36.751
And how do we handle that, you know.

00:37:36.751 --> 00:37:42.000
So that's it's going to be, I think, a little bit more difficult to get our point across on H2Bs.

00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:50.880
But I'm hopeful that we can get to a good place on that issue over time.

00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:55.514
But I'm afraid it's going to be a rough go for a while.

00:37:56.864 --> 00:38:08.360
One of the things I talked about with the attendees at the conference was, you know, the thing that there are a couple of things that sort of keep me up at night looking ahead.

00:38:08.360 --> 00:38:12.976
One is just the overall economic situation and how that plays out.

00:38:12.976 --> 00:38:26.034
I'm concerned that we could get into a sort of frothy bubble kind of market which could have some follow-on effects if that does happen and it does burst.

00:38:26.034 --> 00:38:27.791
So that's a concern.

00:38:27.791 --> 00:38:29.472
I don't think that's unique to anybody.

00:38:29.585 --> 00:38:49.331
But the other big concern that I have is just where the immigration policy and how that's implemented in the next year or two plays out, particularly, you know, as it relates to forced, you know deportations and those types of things.

00:38:49.331 --> 00:38:56.778
I think there seems to be a lot of public support for that right now, in the 60 to 70 percent range.

00:38:56.778 --> 00:39:32.840
I think once you start getting into that situation where people are seeing people forcibly deported and the sort of impact that has on families and that kind of thing, I think you could potentially see the public sentiment shift on that and you know that's, and it could shift markedly and unpleasantly and that's a concern to me and just what it means for how we interact with each other.

00:39:32.840 --> 00:39:44.291
It's fraught with difficulty, it's fraught with difficulty.

00:39:44.351 --> 00:39:46.974
So does the J1 stuff have any?

00:39:46.974 --> 00:39:49.878
Is that, is that totally different.

00:39:50.878 --> 00:39:51.739
It's a different program.

00:39:51.739 --> 00:40:02.731
It's set up a little bit differently than H2Bs, but we have seen clubs that have started to use J1s more.

00:40:02.731 --> 00:40:28.213
But again, it's a program that I would sort of put tangentially to immigration policy, but it's sort of lumped into it and the incoming president has his very strong views on immigration policy that I think is really more focused on the border security issues and illegal immigration than it is on these individual programs.

00:40:28.213 --> 00:40:33.907
But you know, the overall climate has an impact on the willingness to address some of these issues.

00:40:33.907 --> 00:40:39.313
It just becomes really difficult, uh, in Congress.

00:40:39.313 --> 00:40:49.871
Yeah, so not to end on a unhappy note or a somber note, but you know all all is well.

00:40:49.871 --> 00:41:14.516
You know we've, we've gone through difficult periods, uh, in the past and, and with regard to policy, whether it's immigration or anything else, um, you know we have a resilient country and we also have a resilient industry and what we've seen over the course of the last five years, I think, has demonstrated that and there's always reason to be optimistic.

00:41:14.516 --> 00:41:18.590
Limitations force creativity Indeed, indeed.

00:41:20.226 --> 00:41:21.650
Well, thank you for coming on, sir.

00:41:21.650 --> 00:41:24.536
Always appreciate it and always a pleasure when our paths cross.

00:41:25.164 --> 00:41:26.047
Indeed, indeed.

00:41:26.047 --> 00:41:31.478
Great to see you, and I know we say this every time, but hopefully it won't be as long next time.

00:41:31.478 --> 00:41:42.836
I did have some issues pop up personally that kept us from doing this, but yeah, we'll not let as much time lapse from our next conversation.

00:41:43.498 --> 00:41:46.190
Yes, sir, hope you all enjoyed that episode.

00:41:46.190 --> 00:41:48.126
Hope you all got something from it Real quick.

00:41:48.126 --> 00:41:58.378
If you would like early access and early copy to the Club Entertainment Guide, send me an email with the subject line Entertainment Guide to hello at privateclubradiocom.

00:41:58.378 --> 00:42:00.190
Hello at privateclubradiocom.

00:42:00.190 --> 00:42:04.168
If you're enjoying the content, share it with somebody.

00:42:04.168 --> 00:42:08.666
Share it with someone who you think might enjoy this episode or any of the other episodes.

00:42:08.666 --> 00:42:15.266
Give it a five-star rating with a comment that means the world, but that's this episode.

00:42:15.266 --> 00:42:16.509
I'm your host, denny Corby.

00:42:16.509 --> 00:42:18.713
Until next time, catch y'all on the flippity flip.