Pickleball’s Playbook: Why “Everyone” Is the Target Market | Stories With Traction Podcast
SHOW NOTES:
In this episode, Matt Zaun sits down with Patricio Misitrano, a racquet-sports strategist and consultant, to unpack the cultural boom of pickleball and the fast-rising padel movement and what it means for players, investors, and operators.
Patricio explains why pickleball exploded (hint: everyone is the target market), how short games and easy onboarding supercharge engagement, and what separates thriving facilities from failing ones. Whether you’re a curious player, a gym owner exploring new revenue, or an investor eyeing a space, this episode breaks down the economics, operations, and community dynamics behind modern racquet sports.
In addition, they talk about:
✅ Why pickleball went mainstream: universal target market, near-zero learning curve, short game loops, and high social proximity
✅ Injury reality check: common risks (wrist/ankle/knee), why “deconditioned returners” get hurt, and how risk compares to other sports
✅ Coaching & performance: why even elite athletes hire tough coaches and how the right fit accelerates results
…and much more.
BIOS:
Patricio Misitrano is a racquet-sports consultant and club operator with 20+ years across tennis, pickleball, and padel. He advises entrepreneurs and investors on site selection, build-outs, programming, pricing, software, staffing, and launch strategy, and has been involved end-to-end in facility development and operations. Patricio is a former tennis pro, lifelong multi-sport athlete, and marathoner who brings a coach’s mindset and an operator’s rigor to growing this category.
Matt Zaun is an award-winning speaker and strategic storytelling expert who shows leaders how to inspire action and drive results through the power of story. He’s the author of The StoryBank, a practical playbook for using strategic storytelling to build culture, boost sales, strengthen marketing, and become a dynamic public speaker.
*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors
Matt Zaun
Patricio, welcome to the Stories of Traction podcast.
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
Thank you so much for having me, Matt. I'm really excited about talking to you today. I appreciate your time, and I am absolutely fascinated with what you do.
Matt Zaun
In fact, I've never come across someone that does exactly what you do. So I'm really interested to unpack this with you.
And I'm coming to this conversation with abundance of curiosity. I don't know much about the sports that you're involved with, but I am very interested in cultural obsessions, the psychology as it pertains to sports.
And just very... So you have been at the forefront of racket sports for over two decades in the U.S., and that's where I want to start.
I want to start with just what you do from a sports perspective, how you help companies. So can you give everyone just a rundown of your day-to-day, what you do in that racket sports space?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
And on a day-to-day, these days, I am in front of my computer screen, and I do phone calls, I do video calls, and occasionally I meet with some folks in person.
And more than anything, I try to explain where the space is going in terms of tennis, pickleball, and paddle, even a little bit of that from tennis as well, or squash.
But my day-to-day is in front of the computer, on the phone, very, very far from where it used to be, which was on the court, teaching and playing.
So I want to say...
Matt Zaun
Start with the pickleball piece, because this has been a fascination of mine. So I first learned about pickleball. This is several years ago.
I will never forget this moment. I was actually speaking in Green Bay, and I was in the middle of a conversation, and this lady said, oh, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry. I have to cut this short. I've got to get to my pickleball match. And I said, pickleball match?
And she's like very hyped up, very concerned. She had to make it to her pickleball match. She said, every Tuesday night, she said, I'm at pickleball.
I've been doing this for years. And that was the first time I had ever heard of this. And then, you know, I forget the exact terminology, but there's a psychological term that, you know, if you didn't own a Honda and then you buy a Honda, you see Hondas everywhere, right?
And the same thing was true with me, that I heard of pickleball, never heard about it up to that point.
And then everywhere I'm seeing pickleball courts go up and people talking about it. And it just, it seemed like it was everywhere for me.
And in the area that I live, there have been multiple courts that have been just, it's... Seems like they're popping up everywhere.
So can you give us a rundown of pickleball, the cultural phenomenon that it is, and where you potentially see it going in the future?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
Yeah, for me, it was a little bit of the same experience when I first learned about pickleball, even though I've been a tennis pro for almost two decades up until that point.
And it was very, very interesting because the main reason, I think there are a few reasons why pickleball is so popular.
Number one, you know, when you think about a business and so who is my target market? Well, pickleball is absolutely everybody.
Everyone is your target market. So that's a big one. Then the other part that is really interesting and one of the main reasons why pickleball is so popular is that the learning curve is non-existent.
I can give you, if you've never played any racket sports whatsoever in your entire life, I can give you a paddle.
I can give you a paddle. paddle. We can go out there and we can more or less, you know, start playing right off the bat.
So when the learning curve is non-existent and everyone is your target market, then you see the millions of millions of people that pay pickable.
The other one is that, and now it's changing because now you have more structure in terms of the facilities.
But in a couple of years ago, you could say, you know what, I'm just going to buy a net online.
I'm going to use sidewalk chalk and I can even play in my, you know, in my driveway. Well, now there's more structure to it, but it's very simple.
And the facilities are, compared to other sports, are inexpensive to build. Now, of course, you know, you have indoor facilities and, you know, really fancy ones.
And that's a different story. But the growth of the sport is because the facilities are very easy and, you know, somehow inexpensive to build.
And the fourth part is the social aspect. Since anyone can play, since it's very easy to learn, and then you can play in a lot of different...
In places, you can connect and you're close to your opponents and to your partners. I'm going to use tennis as an example.
You're really far from your opponents. So the social aspect, it doesn't happen while you're playing. It might happen after.
And in other sports as well, you don't have the chance to be really close to your partners and your opponents.
And in people, you do. And then the last piece of the puzzle is that the games actually are very short compared to other sports.
So you can play a game to 11 points and it takes maybe 10, 15 minutes. And then you can do it all over again.
So you don't have to play for a very, very long time to then play with somebody else or to play again.
So all these elements make pickleball what it is today that some say close to 50 million people in the U.S.
play. So that's one out of seven people, living people in the U.S. play pickleball.
Matt Zaun
So. It appears to me that the marketing, because you said pickleball, everyone's the target market, learning curve is non-existent, games are short, right?
So it keeps people engaged. But it seems to me like a lot of the marketing I've seen has been targeting senior citizens.
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
Would you agree with that analysis? That was a few years ago. Right now, the largest population that plays is young adults.
It's not the senior citizens. The senior citizens keep playing, but these days it's hard to create connections outside your family, the parents of your kids, friends, and whatnot.
And creating new connections as a young adult is very difficult. Everyone who goes and plays in a pickleball, you know, social or an open play, then you create those connections.
So the young adults are finding pickleball as an avenue to meet others and to spend time with, you know, in...
With other people, you know, their age, you know, in their 20s and 30s, it's a great way to connect.
It's not just for young adults. And even as a family, you can go out there and play it.
Matt Zaun
What's the injury risk with pickleball?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
There are injury risks with all sports. And with adults, and I'm going to say, you know, older adults, the number one injury is in their wrists.
Because if you think about pickleball, so pickleball is, you know, 20 feet wide by 44 feet long court. So on your side of the net is 22 feet.
So you get to that kitchen line, which is, you know, seven feet from the net. And then when the ball goes over your head, then you have to, you know, turn around and then go backwards.
That's how a lot of the injuries happen. But when you have a lot of people that have never done any sports or they stop for a few years, then, of course, you're going to get some.
So some are in their wrists, some are in their knees, some are in their ankles. Just with any sport, there's a potential for risk.
I think big ball is very low risk compared to other sports. But yeah, there's injury risk in all sports.
The majority of the injuries come from people that have not done any sort of athletic sport or any sort of exercise for a while and then they go and play.
And that could be the same if they play a different sport as well. It's not just specific to pickleball.
So it's very low, right?
Matt Zaun
The risk of injury compared to other sports, very, very low. Would you, would you, I know it's obviously it's very difficult to predict the future, but based on all the analysis you've seen, all the reports that you've gone through, everything in all your experience, are you fairly confident that when we get to the end of this decade, pickleball will still be a popular sport to engage in?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
I could tell you, I could am 100% sure. I'm going to say I'm 99.9% sure. I don't see any reason why pickleball is not going to continue being super popular.
And, you know, if anything, I think that more people will play it than now.
Matt Zaun
Interesting. All right. So you also mentioned prior to this, this conversation, us hopping on here and recording, you had mentioned other sports coming to the forefront, especially from a cultural perspective.
What are some other racket sports that you see taking off right now?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
I have to say Padel is spelled P-A-D-E-L. It's another racket sport that I'm very familiar because I used to play it in the 90s in Argentina.
The sport was founded in the late 60s, 1960s in Mexico. And by someone who had a space to play tennis, but it wasn't big enough and had some walls.
And he said, oh, instead of me chasing the balls, I'm going to use the ball so you can play the ball off the wall.
You can play the ball off the screen. off screen. And it's, in a lot of ways, very similar to Pickleball because it's played in a double format, almost exclusively.
And then you're also close to your opponents, close to your partners. And the learning curve is almost as non-existent as Pickleball, and the target market is the same.
Anyone can play Fathom. You don't have to have racket experience. In Argentina, which is a very big, you know, has a big history about tennis and players and tons of players play tennis in Argentina.
The majority of the players who play Fathom in Argentina are non-tennis players. Argentina is the second in terms of number of players.
Spain is first. And in the U.S., it's been growing tremendously in the last almost two years now. I was, last week, I saw they were talking about Fathom in CNBC.
And as far as the investment goes and the growth of this Fathom.
Matt Zaun
Interesting. Okay. And then I also saw in your background that you've helped develop facilities, you advise entrepreneurs, you meet with investors.
Is this to help individuals or organizations set up these facilities and then drive people to them? you help with every aspect of getting people into these facilities and making sure that it's sustainable?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
Yeah, and I do. And I've been involved in every part of developing, you know, one facility. did my own facility.
I had, you know, business partners as well. But I was involved in every aspect of it from finding the real estate.
And, you know, there was a real estate transaction that took part, you know, raising the funds, setting up, you know, the business and from hiring the staff, looking at the performance and, you know, and operating the facility as well.
But the one thing that I see these days is that, and it happened a little bit with Pickleball as well.
Now people think that, okay, so Pickleball. You know, everyone is talking about him and I want to get involved.
I want to make some money. And it's not that easy. You know, even if you have the right location and even if you actually are paying the lease, it makes sense.
There are so many other things that are super important. And I'm going to use the analogy of a restaurant.
So I have no idea how to run a restaurant. So it's located in the best possible place. I have the best chef and I don't even know where to buy the food, for example.
I don't even know how to train the servers. I don't even know how to bring people in through a door.
So every single part of this puzzle, and I'm going to include also what's the menu look like? How often do I change the menu?
How much do I charge for all these, you know, food plates? You know, do I have dessert? Do I offer appetizers?
So when you think about a sporting facility, and in this case pickleball or paddle, it's exactly the same. All these pieces of this puzzle.
puzzle, they... needs to be done properly, and you have to have the right team. It's not just saying, oh, I found the right location, the clear, you know, sometimes the height of the building is not high enough.
And the lofts, both, especially in padel, and a little bit in pickable, not as much, but you need a minimum height for the sport to be played.
So all these different parts need to be done right. Right. And that's where I help, you know, some folks, and it could be that I help them, you know, a location.
I help them with, you know, setting up the pricing structure, what to offer, are they offering membership, even, you know, all these facilities now have softwares that allow them to book courts online.
And there are so many different ones out there. And I help them with, you know, some guidance in how to choose the one that fits their business model.
And that's kind of what I what I do. And more than anything, and this sounds a little, you know, like, oh, yeah, sure, you do that.
I really want everyone to be successful. Because if you have all these businesses that are going to open up and they fail, it doesn't help anybody.
You want all these businesses to be successful, even in someone, especially on the pickable side, now there's enough competition.
But on the paddle side, if someone opens close to you, you actually want them to be successful because they're going to help you grow the entire market.
And then you can compete with them and do interclubs and do more tournaments. And that's what I do on a daily basis, and I help folks.
And now I'm mainly working with one company that I'm working for them to manage all their clubs, all the Racket Social Club.
But yeah, those are all these little things that I do, and I found that no one was doing what I was doing.
And sort of my background put me in this position, and now I'm just taking advantage of it, I guess.
Matt Zaun
Yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing that. I'm fascinated by all this. You said your background. I'm fascinated. Fascinated by where people got to where they are, you know, their story for sure.
So I want to start, want to backtrack a little bit and start in your teen years. Were you drawn to athletics?
And if so, what were you into? How did you, how did you see if we backtrack and we connect the dots going backward?
How do you see that what you did as a teen positioned you to where you are now today? Okay.
So as a teen and even before then, I played sports my entire life.
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
I don't remember not playing soccer. And, you I grew up in Argentina and I started playing tennis when I was nine.
Then I played a ton of tennis. You know, I would practice five times a week, conditioning four times a week, playing tournaments during the week on weekends.
And whenever there was an open court at my club, even for five, 10 minutes, we were just jump on the court.
So I always play tennis. I always play soccer. Then I play paddle as a kid, as a teenager. And I grew up playing rugby as well.
And at some point, point, and I broke my wrist playing rugby, and my dad used to play rugby as a kid, too, and said, you know what, I know what's coming, so we're going to stop the rugby thing, and you're going to play more tennis now.
And I still love rugby. I played a lot of basketball as a team, and even when I was a young adult in Argentina, and I did martial arts, and I would do any sport that was available to me.
I would play any sport, so nowadays, you know, all the coaches are talking about, and trying, well, some coaches talking about not focusing on one sport because playing other sports help you.
I think they definitely do, and they also give you a little bit of a break of using the muscles in the same repetitive way, which could lead to injuries.
Interesting. Did you come from a family that was interested in sports?
Matt Zaun
mean, clearly your dad knew how to transition you from rugby to tennis, so was your father involved enough? He was.
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
When I was a kid, he almost didn't play that much. He played a little bit of tennis as an adult, but he didn't participate as much as I did.
I have one younger brother who's one year younger than me, and we both were as active and playing sports, and we lived four blocks away from a club that had 23 tennis courts, rugby fields, soccer fields, indoor pool, outdoor.
It was more like a municipal type of club. It doesn't really exist. I haven't seen them in the U.S.
You would maybe compare it to a YMCA that had all these sports. It's called Club Ciudad de Buenos Aires in the middle of the city, and in Argentina are a lot of those clubs.
But no, my dad played a little bit, not at the level that I did, and then I have two younger brothers, actually, but one of them is one year younger than me, and he was as active as I was, and my other younger brother, the same.
And so I grew up playing. I don't remember not doing sports as a kid.
Matt Zaun
So then, so you're a teen, you transition into, you know, you becoming an adult. I saw that you did a bunch of marathons.
Is that correct? You did, is it five marathons I read?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
Yeah, I completed five. I ran six. I actually, when I was in the best shape of my life, I couldn't complete the marathon.
I got hurt in the first mile and I ran 10 miles. And then I was going for a specific time that I knew I was not going to make it.
And I had to stop. But yeah, and that was in the last few years, I started in 2017 and, you know, running six times a week with a coach that really helped me both mentally and physically and learning about the sport.
I thought it was, okay, I'm going to just go out there and then just run, put on my running shoes.
Well, I ended up having a lot of different types of running shoes and it's not just going out there.
And just run. So I had a coach that actually helped me get better at running. And the funny thing is that during that entire period where I was running, which was almost seven years, and I was always super fast doing any possible sport.
When you run long distance and you train for long distance, your muscles start to change. And then when I would go and play tennis or play paddle or platform tennis or pickleball, I became much slower because I am a fast-twitch type of athlete.
And when you run and train for long distance, then that's what your body gets used to. So it hurt, in a way, my speed on the court, but it helped me mentally because when you run marathons, you have to really work on your mental game.
Matt Zaun
For sure. So I appreciate you mentioning the coach piece because, you know, your background, you had mentioned playing tennis at nine.
know, clearly you had a ton of experience in athletics and rugby and soccer and all these different sports. So the fact that you reached out for a coach speaks to you wanting to get better.
I think that's incredible. From a development perspective, if anyone listening, there's a lot of people I talk to, especially in the business space, they do run, they want to be better runners.
What advice would you give someone on how to pick the best coach? Is there something specific that you look for?
What do you want in a coach to make sure that you are running to the best of your ability?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
So for me, there are a lot of coaches that know they're running and they know what to do, how much to train, how to schedule a week, a month.
You know, the training blocks. And for me, it was key that we connected as a person. She was very tough.
And I mean, the 59 year old woman who is an amazing athlete in her own way. She's like one of the best runners long distance in the world in her age.
But she's like so tough. And that actually helped me. And we connected in that way. So connecting at that level, it makes the whole, you know, it makes the difference.
And because if we don't connect as. You know, coach and athlete. And then it doesn't matter how much she knows.
And I'm not going to look at the information she's giving me the same way. So we need to connect that we need to trust each other.
So that part of, you know, connecting with your coach with the athlete, or it could be a mentor, or an MNT, you have to connect on the personal level.
And then you can take on, you know, all the knowledge that they have in a completely different way, more positive.
Matt Zaun
Yeah, appreciate you sharing that. You know, it's amazing how many people like to surround themselves with yes men. And the fact that you just said that you wanted to be challenged, you wanted someone to push you, you didn't want someone to necessarily make you feel good, but really push you to the point of achieving your goals.
think it's really, really important. So there's a lot of people listening to this episode that they're not necessarily into racquet sports, right?
They're not into it, but they may have, they may have funding to do something. Because this is such a cultural phenomenon, you mentioned the numbers earlier, on just the sheer volume of people, especially in the U.S., that are involved in these sports.
If someone is a gym owner or they have the capital to invest in gyms or a gym, so they're aligned in that world, but they themselves are not going to play this.
How can they get a piece of the action, if you will? What would you recommend that they would do in order to make sure that they don't miss this wave?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
So there are a lot of different ways that you can participate in this new, you know, Pickleball, Slash Paddle, you know, wave of investments.
And one is, I think, and this is with any business, you have to trust the folks that are running the business, and you have to trust that their team can execute.
That's number one, because I can show you Proforma, and it looks amazing. You know, the ROI, you know, it looks very entire.
I've seen the NOI, and I can show you all these numbers, and you're like, oh, my God, you know, I need to get into this.
But if the team that is behind the business doesn't have the experience, doesn't know how to execute, then it doesn't matter how good that spreadsheet looks or that, you know, investor's deck looks.
Because at the end of the day, you're going to give them money, and then if they don't know what to do with that money, then it's not going to be a good investment.
So that's one. The other one is, you know, there are so many different ways that you can invest, and I'm going to talk about, you know, am I investing in a club?
Am I investing in an events company, you know, leagues company? Am I investing in software that supports these businesses?
Am I investing in, you equipment, apparel? And am I investing in a team that participates in professional sports, you know, whether it's pickable or paddle?
And a couple of days ago, and one of these teams that participates in, you know, is the franchise that just sold for almost $10 million.
going project. I'm going to it's I know someone that I know was offered a franchise for $250,000, and he said no.
And then two years later, the same franchise was selling for $5 million, and now some of them sell for over $10 million.
So there are a lot of different ways that you can participate, and I would say the vision of that business, and you have to match your vision for where you want to go, and then you have to believe that the thing that is behind that business is going to execute.
Matt Zaun
Yeah, so I really appreciate you mentioning, you know, trust the folks that run these specific businesses. Earlier, you shared the analogy of a restaurant, and to expand on that analogy, you know, just because someone has a successful restaurant in one area...
It doesn't necessarily mean that they can dive into another area of the restaurant business, right? So maybe there is a really high-end restaurant that's doing exceptionally well, and then they want to open a restaurant that serves cheaper, let's say, items, and they want longer lines, and they want to crank through sales.
It's a completely different business model, right? So what would you say to someone who might have run a successful gym?
Okay, so whatever that gym is, let's think from a picture perspective, a traditional gym, right? So they're in the athletic world.
They have the capital to do something. What would be the difference in being in that world but then trying to dive into the racket sports space if someone's never been?
What would be some of those differences?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
And I think you need to look at the demographics. And, you know, the demographics or a specific area might work for a gym, might not work.
is, Thank And within that same area, maybe the way that you're running that club, and I'm going to use two examples.
Well, actually, some examples for how to run a club. You can run a club where you say members only.
You can say anyone can come and play, or you can use a hybrid model. So which one of those three models is going to be the best option to use in that location?
And so I don't have the answer because I would have to look at that specific location, look at the demographics, look at how many people live in a 10-mile radius or 30-minute drive from that area.
And are there any other clubs in that area that sell the same product? Are there any other pickleball clubs?
Are there any other paddle clubs? Are you the first one? Do you want to be the first one? Is it better to just go in as the second one tomorrow?
You know, they've done all the hard work. When someone tells me, and, you know, there's this big, you know, club that is going to open close to me, like, okay, excellent, because they're going to do all this, you know, PR, and all these people are going to start talking about the sport.
I'm already in the area, and I already have a community, so they're helping my business. So all these little things, they're definitely very important if you want to expand from, you having a gym, and perhaps thinking about adding paddle, adding pickleball, you know, what structure are the members of my gym?
Can they use the cords for free? Is there an additional fee? And those are all things to think about, but definitely, if you have the height, the ceiling height, and that's actually one of the most difficult things to find.
And when you have indoor facilities, you don't need to worry about rain, don't need to worry about snow, don't need to worry about, it might snow, so people still don't come, so the indoor.
Facilities are premium commodity, and most of the clubs are going in that direction. Yeah, appreciate you mentioning all this, and I really appreciate our time today, our conversation.
Matt Zaun
Fascinating for me. I've just been curious about this for quite some time, so I appreciate you being a part of this podcast, this episode.
Yeah, so there's a lot of takeaways that I have. There's three in particular that I got from our conversation that I'm going to focus on after.
One thing that you said about Pickleball, and it got me really thinking about my own business. I think there's a really important point that you made.
So I was asking about just the obsession with Pickleball. How did it take off, like wildfire? And you said, Pickleball, everyone is the target market.
Learning curve is non-existent, and the games are short, right? So it keeps people engaged. And it really got me thinking, because for years and years and years of my business, I had a very specific target market, and I wanted to bring other people into the loop.
And it wasn't until I rolled something out in my... that everyone could take part in, everyone could get value in, and that really helped me from a marketing perspective.
And I do realize that as more and more people get involved in Pickleball, there's other different things that they get involved with as well, right?
So I think it's really important for people to understand cultural phenomenons, you know, why do things happen the way that they do?
That's point number one. The second point, I really appreciate what you mentioned regarding a coach. I think it's interesting that someone that has your level of experience, you know, decades and decades and decades of what you do still reaches out for a coach.
I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, right? That we're not finished products. We can always get better.
And then when I asked you, what do you look for in a coach? You said, very tough, right? Your coach is very tough.
And then you wanted someone that was willing to challenge you, to force you to have more grit and growth.
I think every single business leader listening to this episode should ask them that question. Do they have a coach, not necessarily a running coach, maybe, but a coach that forces them to have more
More grit and growth. I appreciate that second point. And then the third point that I really appreciate is how important it is to have the right people doing certain things.
You mentioned you need to trust folks that run these specific businesses. I think that's so important because often we can get in our own head that, oh, if we know something about this one topic, it's going to dive into this other topic.
And I think it was really important what you said about restaurants, right? Just because a restaurant succeeds in one area doesn't mean it's going to succeed with another restaurant, with a completely different kind of food and different target market.
So I think those three points were really, really important. Thank you so much. If anyone wants to reach out to you, maybe they want to inquire about your services, they're interested in starting courts themselves, where's the best place they can go to get that information?
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
Yeah. They can find me on LinkedIn, you know, under my first name, last name. They can also go to misitranoconsulting.com.
That's my consulting site. And I usually do an intro call just to learn about, you know, if there's a field.
If there's a need, if it makes sense, a lot of times I said, you don't need me, or I recommend someone else.
Those are probably the best two places to contact me.
Matt Zaun
Great. I'll include that in the show notes. People could just click and go from there. We met on LinkedIn.
I appreciate the content you shared. So anyone that is interested in any kind of racket sports, highly recommend following you.
And again, I'll include that in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it.
Thank you so for having me.
Patricio (Misitrano Consulting)
was great talking to you and, you know, telling you a little bit about my story.
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