And, you know, he mentioned too the money coming from the barns too, funding a lot of this, but also, you know, we didn't feel like we we we wouldn't felt right approaching these barns and asking for 10,000, just told a a head to head battle, you know, so what we've done there to get them engaged and get them involved, you know, so 7,500 of the 10,000 goes towards auctioneer's pot, but 2,500 of that goes to the barn pots, you know? So we're not, you know, holding anything out of that. So if you have a qualifier, so if your head to head battle winner goes on to win this whole deal, I don't have it wrote down here, but I think it's gonna pay, what was it, 60,000, I think, for the sale barn. If your head to head qualifier ends up winning the whole deal, it's gonna pay that sale barn to to win that.
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Announcer:Value added nutrition partners trusted by cattle producers across the country. Now here are your hosts, Ty deCordova and Casey Mabry.
Ty deCordova:Welcome back to the We Live It podcast. Myself, Ty deCordova, and cohost Casey Mabry. We are joined today by Sam Sam Sam Stamper and Brian Marlin of Oklahoma. They are with a new contest I'm sure y'all seen out on social media. It's a head to head auctioneer contest called A League of Their Own.
Ty deCordova:We wanted them to join us today and tell us a little bit about it, how they kind of come up with it, and then kind of where the things go. They have some exciting news and exciting for them and exciting for LiveAg as well. We'll kind of get into that later on. But Sam, Brian, just kind of fill us in on who I don't care who goes first, of your background. I know Brian, I've seen you around.
Ty deCordova:I've talked to you a bunch. I've known you for a long time through OKC and all that. Sam, just kinda met you here a couple months ago, but we all have livestock background and livestock marketing background. Sam, you own the sale barn in Dakota. Just kinda give us a little bit of background on yourselves and where you're from and where you've been.
Sam Stamper:Yeah. Yeah. You know, I grew up on a small rancher in Beggs, Oklahoma, just South of Tulsa, their little ways, and we ran 40 or 50 cows my whole life. I never were just big operators, but ended up going to college there for four years, graduated from Oklahoma State there with ag business degree, and ended up going to auction school. And that's kind of, we'll kind of get into that too.
Sam Stamper:That's how me and Brian kind of got connected there as well. Went to auction school there and Peyton was there, his son, and that's where I met him. And that's how, you know, we kind of got connected. But anyway, fast forward a little bit, I had a call from a man named Clark Victory. Buys a lot of cattle up our way.
Sam Stamper:I'm sure you've heard of him, Ty. I know Brian's real close with him as well. But got a call from him one day and said, Hey, I got an opportunity that you might be interested in. He said, There's a sale barn over here that a man, he said, is, know, sales are not running many cattle right now, and he's looking to kind of do something different. He said, I think it'd be something you'd be interested in.
Sam Stamper:And that's kind of where it all started was that phone call right there. And I think the sale before we took it over, there was 19 head that Tuesday the day it was on, now we're averaging kind of $608,100 a week, and a lot of that to do with all the good help and good customers we got around, but that's kind of how we kind of got into the business there at Shakope.
Ty deCordova:Who'd you buy that off of?
Sam Stamper:So we lease facilities off of Jim Bob Cross.
Ty deCordova:Okay, I thought it was Jim Bob. Yeah, Jim Bob, good people. Good people.
Sam Stamper:Yeah, good man. Yeah, he's been great. My
Ty deCordova:oldest daughter, we went to I don't remember where we were. We was in the mountains somewhere at a sale and I could not get her to quit crying. She was, I don't know, eight months old maybe at the time. Big Jim Bob was sitting next to me. He says, give me let me have her, leave me a try.
Ty deCordova:Heck, forward over with, she was asleep in his lap. Mean, he's great people.
Sam Stamper:Yeah. He's a good he shows up for great actually buys for cabinets out of our barn there, and he'll show up and he babysits our two little girls a lot of the day too. They're at the barn. So they're, like I say, really, really good people, and man, it's been a pleasure to do business with him right there for sure.
Ty deCordova:Yeah. I like old Jim Bob. Brian, kind of give us a little bit of your background.
Brian Marlin:Yeah. I grew up right there East Of Claremore by the Will Rogers Downs, and just had a small 40 acre track, mom and dad did. We rode a few cows and bought and sold some roping kids and baby kids growing up. But graduated high school, I got a full ride, an educational scholarship and academic scholarship and went there two years and then decided I wanted to go auctioneer. And I got in with a gentleman I'm sure you all know really well, Brian Little up at Coffeyville, Kansas.
Brian Marlin:Brian took me under his wing and kind of showed me the ropes. I pretty much never really went to an auction school, but learned as I went and followed Brian around and he let me sell the butcher hogs and butcher cows up there and then sort out back. And then it just took off from there. I was, I was blessed to, I worked a lot of barns. It's really hard, profession to get into, as you guys know, but I was, I don't know if lucky blessed, I don't know what you call it, but, I was sure fortunate enough to work in behind Justin Dodson, Brian Little, Kenny Wilcox, a lot of these guys that have been right there at the top of the world every year.
Brian Marlin:Brian's no longer with us, but, sure think about him quite often. I've sold this my twentieth year, behind the mic in the block selling cattle. And I worked for Sam there, along with my son Peyton. And, that's what, that's what we do every Friday. So it, it's been good for me.
Ty deCordova:Deal. So let's, let's dive right into A League of Their Own. When I heard about it, I was like, that's pretty neat. Pretty cool deal. Then a mutual friend of ours reached out and called us one day and that's how we kinda all met up and talked.
Ty deCordova:But kinda where did the concept come from? I mean, what made y'all wanna step out and do this?
Sam Stamper:You know, we've kinda talked about it. Brian joked around a couple times about, you know, we ought to have a competition here at Shakota, you know, and the kind of a smaller type barn like we are, we never really seen it as an option, you know, but we definitely, you know, thought as we wanted to entertain the idea of it anyway. But a year went by from the first time we talked about it, I don't know, an idea just kind of came into our minds about the head to head deal. Lot of it comes from a rodeo background. I've rodeoed and roped my whole life and always was into the match ropings, whether it's team roping, calf roping, whatever it was, you know, and just kind of thinking, you know, one day is how we can incorporate that into this auction competition.
Sam Stamper:And this is what we came up with, and I came to Brian with it there, and you mentioned something to Brian Marlin and it's gonna go. And this guy's a hustler. He's gonna push it, you know, that's what he's done. But as soon as we kind of came up with the concept and the layout of kind of what we had in mind, boy, it just kinda took off on its own and started rolling downhill with it there for sure.
Ty deCordova:Brian, just kind of go in detail of how y'all have done this first year about the matchups and how many world champions and how many great rookies that have been there and just kinda going to going a little bit of that.
Brian Marlin:Yeah. I mean, when we started, we didn't really know who we was gonna get, how to pick it. I mean, there was a lot of questions. You know? What do we do?
Brian Marlin:How do we do it? But I just kind of reached out to guys that I'd competed against through the years, know, guys that had either won the world or been right there at the top year in and year out. We come up with, you know, well, we come up with 25 or 30, but we narrowed down and got 18 of them. I think ended up this year with nine world champions, eight or nine world champions, a couple international champions. And I mean, it's a loaded field.
Brian Marlin:For the finals this year, when the smoke all cleared, I think there's five world champions, two reserve world champions, an international champion, and two guys that's been in the top tens. That's what we're chasing. We're chasing after the best of the best. And I think, you know, you're seeing it full circle right through through this contest this year.
Ty deCordova:Just to preface this, we are prerecording this and this is a Wednesday we're doing it, the finals are this Saturday, but this podcast will come out the Thursday after the finals. So we don't know kind of how it turns out yet, but when this comes out, everybody will know the smoke could be cleared and that there will be a champion. What of what is that going to pay them this year?
Brian Marlin:Well, we talked about it in the beginning, but it's going to pay 25,000 to win it this year, 15,000 for second, and 10,000 for the third place winner. Sam, go ahead and elaborate kind of on, you know, this is the largest, I think, payout ever in an auction contest, but there's more to it than just winning that day. And Sam will kind of explain that to you.
Sam Stamper:Yeah. So what we've done too is, know, each of the nine weeks of these guys that have came, your winners won $1,000 every week. And the guy that was not fortunate enough to get it done that day, we still paid him 500. So we've already paid out 13,500 to these guys over the first nine weeks of this deal. So we're gonna have paid out over $63,000 to these guys with zero fees involved in this competition.
Sam Stamper:So these guys, like I said, they didn't put any fees up to come. We do appreciate each and every one of them that's came and competed and man, they've done a heck of a job and we've sold a lot of cattle just as high as you can imagine. And it's drawn a lot of attention to the little barn right there in Chaco. And it's done us a lot of good, but it's done those auctioneers a lot of good as well. And we're excited to kind of expand on that going forward too, it's only gonna get better.
Ty deCordova:Okay, well let's kind of dive right into the getting better part. I mean, y'all come to us and talk through a bigger contest, a contest that'll pay out like a substantial amount for the year 2027. We're gonna wait till the end just so we can get all the marketing and stuff done just right on it. It's kinda going, I'll let y'all tell the story, mean, this is y'all show, I'm just gonna kinda ride your coattails, so.
Sam Stamper:Well, I'll be the first to I'm gonna let Brian kinda go in-depth on that, but you know, when we kinda got to talking about how many auctioneers he was looking at bringing in and how many barns he was gonna take, and like I'll let Brian get into all that. But I was a little bit of a naysayer myself as far as getting as many barns involved as what we have and auctioneers as well. But I'll tell you, it's no problem. A lot of it's to do with Brian Marlin sitting right here, I'll let him get into the rest of it.
Brian Marlin:The biggest thing we knew, if we wanted to operate and do what we wanted to do and the dream we had, we had to have a bunch of barns because we're charging these barns 10,000 to host a head to head contest. And so we come up well, we wanted 66 auctioneers is kind of what we come up with. So we needed 33 barns. And so that's how a lot of this money's generated. And then we went a step forward and we got guys from barns from the state of Florida all the way to the state of California, up through the Midwest, down into Texas.
Brian Marlin:I mean, they're stretched all over the nation. And so that's what we're chasing. And then we decided we was going to go with a semifinal. So we're going to put these and everything will be in a random draw, but these 33 barns will draw into three brackets, just like March Madness, what we just completed in the college basketball world. They'll go into a semifinal round and there'll be three barns and 30,000 to host a semifinal barn.
Brian Marlin:And then we'll culminate with the finals. So it's going to be a huge, huge payout for well, we're going pay 10 slots in the finals. So it's going to be one like no other.
Ty deCordova:Where are the finals going to be?
Brian Marlin:Can I say it
Ty deCordova:now? Yes, sir. You can.
Brian Marlin:We have locked in a contract, in partnership with LiveAg, you guys, and we're going to Las Vegas, Nevada. And I don't know what that entails because I've never been to Las Vegas. I'm going this year to follow you around Ty and your crew, and Sam's gonna take me around, but we're gonna host the contest. We're gonna have a video auction, in '27 at the Golden Nugget, and, it'll be the it'll it'll be just it's gonna be neat, guys. I mean, it's gonna be neat.
Brian Marlin:I'm very, very excited.
Ty deCordova:Yeah. We was I was driving down the road and Wade Leist called me and he said, hey. It was heck, it might've been I think it was like 10:00 at night. He called me and said, hey, what are you doing? I said, it's 10:00 at night, man.
Ty deCordova:I said, I'm trying to sleep. But I wasn't, I was
Sam Stamper:on the road.
Ty deCordova:I said, no, I'm driving down the road. He said, good. We need to talk. I said, okay. What do you got?
Ty deCordova:He said, you heard of that league of their own thing that they're trying to do up there in Oklahoma? I was like, yeah, I've heard of it. I think it's pretty cool. He said, well, good. You need to go meet with them.
Ty deCordova:I said, for what? He said, well, they got a big idea. I'm like, oh yeah? He said, yeah, like a big idea. I said, okay.
Ty deCordova:We pondered on it for a little while and I called Brian. I think I called Brian next day because I knew Brian. Met up with me and Jason drove to Oklahoma City and met up with Brian and Sam and kinda drew it out on a napkin and agreed to it and shook hands and here we are. We're gonna we're gonna we're planning a sale and we're having a sale. We're gonna have our December sale will be this year in 2026, I think it's December 10, we will be in Las Vegas at the Nugget to go and get a kind of a feed under us this year.
Ty deCordova:And during the NFR finals, it will be rat dab, slap dab in the middle. So Thursday before the Saturday finals, and then the following year we will have the we will host, the contest there at the Nugget, and it's gonna be pretty cool. Pretty cool. And when you talk about 66 auctioneers, the pool that they went through, Brad had a long list. And as you go down through that list, I'm gonna tell you, there's some firepower on there.
Ty deCordova:And it's deep. I mean, it's 66 deep. It's not like you go through there and you can find a weak link. I mean, but matching them up head to head is pretty neat.
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Brian Marlin:We're gonna do one thing we're gonna do that we kinda kicked it around, but there's a lot of these young these young guys are so talented because, I mean, they've got YouTube. They've got they've got so much stuff that we didn't have, you know, when we started and to mimic and learn and this and that, all these different schools. But we're gonna do some quali we're gonna do two qualifiers there at Shakota, and we're gonna invite these younger guys that some of them probably has never been in a contest, but we're reaching out to some of these guys we feel like can really battle. I mean, as of right now, we've got about 20 world champions on the list. I mean, we're going to take, I think, 52 at large guys that's been in the contest year in and year out that has a lot of experience.
Brian Marlin:And then we're going to take seven out of each quarter final or qualifier. So we're going to end up with 66, but we're going let a lot of these young guys have a shot. And when I say young guys, there'll be some older guys too that are going to be in them qualifiers. And that's probably the way it'll be set from now on is once you're in, you're in. And then as this deal grows, we'll just keep adding more guys through a qualifier.
Brian Marlin:So you'll have to qualify
Sam Stamper:for that. Add something to that too, those qualifiers. You know, we're gonna add those two qualifiers, but the highest placing man that qualifies out of a qualifier in the actual contest is gonna win 10,000. So say, say you come in, you're you win third in the qualifier and you you qualify to be in the 66 auctioneers and you end up winning tenth overall in this contest, but you're the highest placing qualifier, we're gonna pay him $10,000 Or maybe he don't even qualify for the finals. He's, you know, might've got out or got to a semifinal and was one hole out.
Sam Stamper:But if he's the highest placing qualifier, he's gonna win 10,000. So it's another neat deal there as far as the qualifiers go.
Ty deCordova:And there there's some other stuff that that they're in the process of doing where where spectators can get involved too, and that that's what's gonna be pretty neat about the whole deal is is how spectators can get involved and get involved in sharing some of the winnings and sharing some of the prize stuff. And Brian's got some big ideas and he's just kinda gotta get them put down on paper, but I think that's going to be pretty fun for us guys that's on the outside looking in. They don't want to kind of be involved and want to kind of keep up with it week to week when we do these start with the 66 or the 33 barns, and it's going to be pretty fun.
Brian Marlin:It's going to be really neat. I'm telling you. We say build it and they'll come. We built it. Didn't know what we were doing when we started, but we still might not know everything, but we're gaining momentum as we speak, and that's what we want.
Ty deCordova:Yeah. Ain't that fun, dude? Yeah. Gonna broadcast all of the 33 barns and they will be broadcast on LiveAg's YouTube channel, the contest will be. So we'll have a landing page there on LiveAg and a link on the League of Their Owns social and a link on League of Their Owns website and that can get you to where you can watch all of the head to heads the way we'll be broadcast on LiveAg's YouTube channel.
Ty deCordova:That's awesome.
Brian Marlin:Can't wait to see it.
Ty deCordova:It's gonna be fun.
Brian Marlin:It's gonna be neat. Yeah.
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Sam Stamper:And, you know, he mentioned too the money coming from the barns too, funding a lot of this, but also, you know, we didn't feel like we, we wouldn't felt right approaching these barns and asking for 10,000, just told head to head battle, you know? So what we've done there, to get them engaged and get them involved, you know, so, 7,500 of the 10,000 goes towards auctioneer's pot, but 2,500 of that goes to the barn pots, you know? So we're not, you know, holding anything out of that. So if you have a qualifier, so if your head to head battle winner goes on to win this whole deal, I don't have it wrote down here, but I think it's gonna pay, what was it, 60,000, I think, for the sale barn. If your head to head qualifier ends up winning the whole deal, it's going to pay that sale barn to win that.
Ty deCordova:I'm telling you that what they come up with is, it's going to be fun to watch.
Brian Marlin:I'll say this, when you call these barns, we got 33 barns and we got two other barns that are on waiting list. Easiest $10,000 investment or a sponsorship I've ever had an opportunity to sell it. These guys just I mean, it just yeah. When do you want us to start? I mean, they're all about it.
Brian Marlin:And it's just a really, really neat concept is what we're doing.
Ty deCordova:Well, is there anything that we didn't cover? I'm excited. Y'all can tell I'm excited and I can see that y'all are super proud of you. I saw
Brian Marlin:something to me at Denver about it when we were up there and he was like, Man, I gotta tell you about this thing. I was like, man, you have another kid or something?
Ty deCordova:Yeah. Was it's excited me.
Brian Marlin:I think the neatest thing about the whole deal, you take two country boys from Oklahoma that, I mean, sell cattle and, but we're just kind of getting our feet wet in this deal. You take LiveAg kind of starting to get their feet wet and they're growing it. And you take two young, young, young guys and you guys put together, I think this deal could just turn out to be really, really neat going forward. I mean, the sky's the limit on everything.
Ty deCordova:We talked that first day and we talked about if you build it, they'll come, but we also talked about if it's in God's hand, that it's gonna happen. So if we don't get in the way and we stand on the kingdom foundation and do it for that, which every time I've seen y'all's, the contest y'all are doing, y'all always gave God the credit for everything that you're doing. And man, that's what it's all about. So if we'll continue down that path, if we'll continue to stand on the kingdom foundation, man, this thing will be, it'll bless some people in the ways they need to be blessed and help some people that are in need and I love it.
Brian Marlin:And that makes my heart so happy that you'd say that. I told you that the day we met. Mean, to me, that's what it's all about. We've been more vocal since all this started, and I can't ever remember in a cell barn setting. We're even Bubba Rutherford's even coming down the day of the contest on the finals.
Brian Marlin:He was one of our judges. He's actually going to share his testimony and, share God's word, thirty minutes before we start the sale. I mean, what more can you ask for? I mean, you know what I'm saying? We're not perfect.
Brian Marlin:We all sin and fall short of the glory of God, but it's sure a blessing, I'll tell you. Yes, sir.
Ty deCordova:Guys, we appreciate y'all. Before we go, anything else you want to touch on, Sam, Brian, did I missed?
Brian Marlin:I think we're good. I think we're good. Appreciate it.
Ty deCordova:Sam, you will be on the Charlotte Advantage podcast. So whenever that releases, I'll I'll tell you what Your your head's gonna pop in. Be sure you have your wife because, Yeah. Y'all are both gonna be on it.
Brian Marlin:Just one shot of, you know, that. Oh my
Ty deCordova:Oh, man. Yeah. No. Thank you guys a lot. I mean, we we appreciate y'all being on.
Ty deCordova:We appreciate y'all trusting LiveAg and and doing something like this to to help y'all host host this deal and to broadcast on our YouTube channels and help with the finals and all that, guys. We just can't thank y'all for trusting us enough. I think it'll be great growth for both parties. We appreciate it. For all y'all out there in social media land, if y'all have any questions for Sam or Brian, what the email address that they can send anything to or if they wanna get involved or anything like that?
Brian Marlin:Go ahead, Sam. Are Sam? What's your email address?
Sam Stamper:I was buffering for a minute there.
Ty deCordova:Okay. What's your email address, Sam?
Sam Stamper:Yeah. Shakota. Livestockgmail dot com.
Ty deCordova:Okay. And anybody out there, we will have some marketing packages for this deal. All the marketing will be run through Brian or LiveAg or Sam or anybody. Y'all can get ahold to any of us. We are in the process of building those marketing package for this contest.
Ty deCordova:So we are going to have sponsors. We will have sponsorship availabilities for that. If you want to reach out for one of those, you can email Keith@liveag.com or reach out to live or go on to liveagliveag.com website and find somebody there and we'll make sure help you out on your marketing and your sponsorship. So thank you everybody for joining us. Appreciate all we all do for us.
Ty deCordova:Don't forget, hit subscribe and like, and thank y'all, God bless.