Category: Social Media

Analytics and Data, Digital, Fan Development, General Sports Business, Social Media, Social Media ROI, Sponsorships

From Front Door to Bottom Line: An Insider’s Look at Sports Marketing Leadership and the Power of Fan Identity

The view from a sports team’s social media seat offers a unique perspective. Social touches just about everything. The person at the helm of the social media practice needs to know everything going on with the team, by necessity. From gameday presentations to sponsor activations, community events, and fan development initiatives, ticket promotions, and team transactions — the list goes on. Meanwhile, social has more fan touchpoints than any other part of the organization, is their finger on the pulse of an admittedly small but mighty sample of the fan base, and has a better picture of fans’ psychographics than perhaps any other department or person within the team.

From his early days managing social media with the Carolina Panthers, Dan LaTorraca appreciated the unique position that social media occupied and the diverse ways it could provide value. He eventually ascended to a role overseeing marketing with the Carolina Hurricanes, taking lessons from years of experience to help in building an industry-leading organization at the Canes. Today, he leads marketing at media measurement and tracking platform Zoomph, where he uses learnings from nearly two decades in sports business to continue to help push the industry forward.

I recently sat down with LaTorraca for a wide-ranging interview, packed with insights and anecdotes from throughout his career. Read on for just a few of the key points touched on in our chat. There is so much more in the full interview, and I highly recommend watching or listening! Check it out here

Social Media Is Part of the Larger Organization

It’s easy to become a little myopic in any job function or role. The social media operation wants to nail its KPIs and surpass them, hitting highs in metrics like views, impressions, reach, and engagement rate. But social media is ultimately one cog, an important and arguably the most front-facing cog, of the team and its business. The power of social media lies in its connectivity to every organizational goal, and therefore its ability to play offense, finding opportunities to capitalize on and problems to solve.

LaTorraca talked about his understanding of the pivotal position in which social media sat, and the mindset of weaponizing it, in a good way, to affect the bottom line, while maintaining and developing the long-term brand and connection with fans essential to any sports team.

“Social obviously was a powerful tool for engagement, for revenue driving, but also it’s like, Well, how are we driving [website] traffic with it? How are we driving leads with it? How is it feeding these other pieces here? How does the mobile app fit in with all this other stuff? How does email fit in? Ultimately, it wasn’t just about social; it was about building a strong digital ecosystem. And social may be the most valuable, impactful, and engaging part of that, especially in that era when everything was social…Social has been that front door, that front porch for teams in a lot of ways, so a lot of the resources and strategy started there, but it had to fit together with everything else, and to ultimately drive value and figure out where those value opportunities are.

“In the Panthers’ case, they were doing really well with ticket sales. They didn’t have a lot [of tickets] to offer because of the PSL [personal seat license] system they had there. So it was like, where are we going to make money elsewhere? Where are we going to drive value elsewhere? And is it with driving tune in for our broadcast network? Is it with retail and merchandise sales? Sponsorship integration ended up being the biggest piece for us. So, really having that perspective of, we have to see how this fits together with everything else, and also understand compromise. A lot of times it’s tough, and it was tough for me at first, too; it was almost like, you have to maintain the purity of social. Like, there’s a way to do this, and we can’t have other departments influencing or implementing our strategy and decision making here with another ticket deal or this or that. But I realized early on that, while it is an important marketing tool, it has to fit within the boundaries and the needs and goals of the organization.”

Developing a Voice and Brand That Draw Fans In

When LaTorraca was early in his tenure with the Panthers, the concept of a team with personality was just emerging in sports social media. But he knew that developing intimate relationships with fans was going to be the most effective way to punch above their weight in the Carolina and national sports hierarchy.

“The first thing that I picked up on was just like answering fans a lot more. Remember Zappos? That was one of the focal points of their social strategy was that they actually responded. We were still in an era in 2011 or so where if a brand responded to you on social, you were like, Alright, it’s either an automated customer service thing or it’s a mistake. The responses didn’t have personality or uniqueness. And you know, where we are now, it’s like, Oh man, this brand actually cursed at me. So we’ve evolved a whole lot. But back then, it was new, and that was something the Panthers could do differently.

“So building those 1-to-1 relationships, and I even kept a list of, like, certain things fans were passionate about, and we built authentic relationships there. I think that really helped us not only understand what mattered to them, but also the language they were using and how to craft and build our content strategy. So it was a mix of best practices and understanding what worked and what didn’t, and what we liked and what we were capable of, as well as what was going to resonate with our fans. We didn’t have the creative resources, we didn’t have a lot of other stuff that other teams had, but we were able to at least strategize our way into driving value both internally and externally.”

But, especially during a time when you’re trying to transform the strategy, you have to be able to show why this shift, this personality pivot, is working. Some things are immediately and easily measurable, some aren’t. But LaTorraca sought to prove why and how things were working and resonating. Those transformative moves can have compound effects, too, increasing fan avidity and evangelism, strengthening identities, and creating a fan base whole that’s greater than the sum of its individuals.

“Certain things like those 1-to-1 interactions aren’t measurable; technically, Zoomph can track those, and you can actually see social value if some kind of response actually catches fire. There is a way, but there’s so much more in those particular instances of measuring the sentiment. It’s not measurable in the traditional sense…

“However, the social voice was a key there, and that was something we were able to have data on that I used to validate the direction we wanted to go…This was at the time when you had the LA Kings starting to show a little more personality on social. I started seeing that and I was like, ‘This is what we need to be doing.’ We tried it in the comments a whole lot, and that was the way to test it. But we would occasionally put stuff out there that I felt was more human and had a bit more personality and sass and spunk to it. And what I would do is track the data and performance of that one and start kind of planting those seeds with my boss and his boss and ultimately their boss, who is the owner of, like, Look, this is working and this performs better than the average post, and clearly this type of of language and messaging and approach is resonating with our fans.

“I think it was built on those 1-to-1interactions, warming people up, and then eventually having actual personality and catching people off guard with some of the stuff that we put out there is going to be really good for growing our brand, engaging our fans, creating pride and sentiment there, and we backed it up with data. We were able to show, like, Hey, this is working, and get that buy-in to the point where in 2014 or so, we started having a lot more personality, and then I was able to share a lot more data. Then, 2015 was the Panthers’ Super Bowl season, and that’s when the gloves came off because it was where the team won 15 or 16 games in a row in the regular season, and a lot of people were doubting the team. And they were upset with Cam Newton for dancing in the end zone, and it was a lot of like, Oh, you guys are good, you’re probably the worst 10-0 team though, and everything was just ripe for me to dunk on on social. Almost like every week, we had something else that would go viral, because nothing galvanizes a fan base like when you’re successful, the team is good, the players are good, you’re winning, and the media or other narratives are coming at you. It puts a chip on the shoulder.”

The Value of Fandom

In its most fully developed state, sports fandom seeps deeply into hearts and minds, and it’s contagious throughout a snowballing mass that grows stronger with each addition and display. The strength, appeal, and spread of a brand create immeasurable value in ways both tangible and intangible. It all leads to arrows and trendlines pointing up, making every activation and strategy that much more meaningful and effective. It’s not always easy to measure linearly, because fandom drives success exponentially.

“I firmly believe that sports fandom can be boiled down to a desire for connection and community, and it’s fueled by identity. Those three pillars, to me, are the things that you have to engage in some way, because that’s what we are at the core of our identity or our kind of essence of sports fandom and sports consumerism. And I think finding ways to engage and leverage those, or build some brand pillars that help kind of convey those…In the Canes case, we defined it as fun, bold, and regional, but those were still lenses we could operate through. Like, regional is a great one, because we can talk about local community engagement and building a Canes bar network, or authentic brand positioning campaigns that were like murals or things like that. So, ultimately, the essence of those things, it’s not directly measurable in a traditional sense; it can be in a bunch of different ways of like, alright, how do we attribute this to that? But if you’re seeing certain things in your tracking, how retail sales of certain items are going up and trying to understand the psychology behind that, or certain types of social content or campaign or messaging or email pieces or other activations, whatever it may be, events or or ticket offers or promotional theme nights — all that stuff is measurable in a sense, but you have to also be able to tie it back to that human element in order to kind of have both sides there. You got to have the tactics you can measure, the activations you can measure and then refine and optimize, and you got to have well, this is how we tie it back to affinity or passion or community or belonging, or these other less tangible and measurable things that are really at the core and essence of what it means to be a sports fan…

“We had all these little ways we were going to try to get [the Canes] logo out there authentically. And it was like, alright, high-quality decals in every online order from our e-commerce shop and working with local businesses to distribute flags and all these little ways to influence the visual positioning of our brand, because that creates more passion. People see that and they say, I want to be part of that, or that’s something, or they’re already a fan, they’re like, I love that. This is that piece of their identity hanging on a flag outside their local bar, and that’s an important piece there. Well, yeah, it’s not as measurable, but it’s so important for growing a brand and creating that sense of pride and that regional sort of connection there, that sports really is.”

Making Big Moments Bigger

Sports are unpredictably predictable. There is a whole lot you can plan for (more on that in the next section), and a whole lot of extemporaneous opportunities that’ll present high ceilings of upside, even if you can’t foresee the details. It’s part art, part science, to enlist a well-worn but apt cliche, and a social media sixth sense of sorts to spot an opportunity to seize — provided the preparation and systems are in place to make seizing said opportunity possible in the first place. LaTorraca recounted one of the many examples of the Canes being ready to execute when an unexpected moment struck (and this excerpt doesn’t even capture all the ways the Canes capitalized):

“The last big piece we had with Twitter Amplify was the David Ayres game, which I’m sure you remember, was the emergency backup goalie comes in for an extended period, not just a couple of seconds, and essentially wins the game against the Maple Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada. And he was the team Zamboni driver. It was this whole wild story. And that video, I remember texting our video producer at the time and was like, Dude, you glue yourself to him, get as much as you can, because we didn’t have video people traveling prior to my first season there. But [revenue via] Twitter Amplify helped me make the case of being like, look at all the money we’re making, we need more video. Thank God somebody was there, and it wasn’t just a PR person with their cell phone getting something. We had one of our best video producers there, and he got some iconic footage that was later used in ESPN commercials and all sorts of stuff. But that one video where, if anybody listening goes and Googles David Ayres, of him walking into the locker room after the game, and all the Canes players are spraying him with water and all that, that one video made like $80,000 for us, and it was insane.”

Building and Activating a Well-Oiled Machine

Just like some of the best athletes make impressive plays look easy, some of the sports organizations make agile execution look smooth, too — like they had it planned all along. Both the athlete and the team can make it look easy because they’ve prepared and planned. They’ve been proactive in setting up the systems that need to operate together when the moment comes and have plans ready to go for every scenario, many of which can be anticipated, to whatever degree of precision. One of the most memorable initiatives from LaTorraca’s time with the Canes was when well-known hockey commentator in Canada, Don Cherry, called the Canes ‘A bunch of jerks.’ And the rest is history, as that line was molded into a revenue stream and a galvanizing force for Canes fans everywhere. LaTorraca explained how executing around that campaign and initiative was just one example of the importance of ‘proactive planning.’

“Creating a culture that prioritizes that proactive planning really is the key to being able to have the runway to capitalize when crazy stuff happens. And it always does. Lightning struck us two times in a year at the Canes, and that was great, and then it didn’t strike the same way for a while. But we had that Bunch of Jerks thing, and we were able to capitalize on it and build a shirt. And people are important, too; we had the right relationships. I can still remember sitting in my office after that game, after we sort of concocted this plan, and Mike Foreman is texting Don Waddell and Tom [Dundon], being like, Hey, we’ve talked, we’re making shirts about this. You know, like, I pitched this idea to him and I was like, we can use this company here, because at the time, Breaking T was just kind of getting big, and I was like, I think they can turn it around for us quickly, because I don’t want to wait here for this one. It was also President’s Day weekend, and a lot of other shirt distributors were closed. Mike got the approval and basically was like, Alright, if Dan can show what a shirt model will look like by the next morning, we’ll go…

“If you give yourself more time, it just leads to so much more opportunity for creativity and doing stuff that’s a higher quality. Whether it is planning out the promotional giveaway item or a Star Wars night idea. Our Whalers night is another great example of like, Hey, you really want to plan that out, that was a Super Bowl for us, in a way, to capitalize on that, whether it was retail or activation, it was a a chance for our creative team to flex, and you want to be able to plan that out far away in advance…Whatever you can do, give yourself the runway to do it for the things you can control. It goes back to what I tell my kids all the time, You can’t control what’s going to happen to you, but you can control how you react. And if you have the right system in place and process in place and plan and people and all that, and you can come up with the right ideas and creative solutions, you can really turn a tough situation into a win, or you can turn a win into a bigger win, but you gotta have a lot of things in place to do it. It doesn’t just happen like that, and if you don’t have the runway to do it, it’s not going to happen. So that’s what really separates the good from the great is those cultures that prioritize people first above all else, but process and proactive planning, and that’s how you really win time and time again when these things happen. Because they always will. It might not be as big as every other situation, but even capitalizing on the smaller ones can still drive value in the end.”

********************************************************************

WATCH/LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH DAN LATORRACA

READ THE SNIPPETS

Conferences, Content Strategy, Fan Development, General Sports Business, Social Media, Working In Sports

What I Learned in a Room Full of the Smartest People in Sports Social

Some of the earliest social media hires in sports are now VPs and SVPs. Social media and content have always been inextricably tied to the underlying business and brand for sports organizations, but for years their impact was mostly acknowledged by vibes. Then likes, impressions, and views added a more data-driven and analytical bent.

Today, an organization’s social media and content strategy isn’t expected to deliver likes and comments, the expectation is to drive direct impact on key business objectives.

With such a lofty ascension, there are better questions being asked, more operationalized workflows, more documented guidelines and guardrails, and more thoughtfulness behind every post, piece of creative, and word that gets in front of fans. The ever-increasing fan touchpoints, an insatiable demand for content, and the realization that social media is where organizations can learn about their fans, grow the fan base and brand, and create new marketing funnels and revenue streams — the level of sophistication and discourse has never been higher.

These were among the key themes at this year’s second annual Gondola Sports Summit, which brought together the leaders and producers who bring sports fans all the content, copy, memes, and more that drive such engagement and earned media — and further key organizational objectives.

I was fortunate to attend the conference, which took place in Denver, May 19-21, and featured speakers from several of the biggest teams and leagues in sports, agencies that work with these organizations, and representatives from many of the platforms where fans consume and converse around all that content. There were countless insights and examples, inspirational stories, revelatory ideas, and warm camaraderie. What follows are a few actionable insights from the panels, which built on the theme of social media and sports growing up. We’ve raced well past the tropes of interns, the power of content and social being recognized and appreciated for all the value it can deliver.

What the sports world needs to know about Reddit

Reddit has kind of been having a moment, and not just in sports. It’s increasingly one of the last true large ‘social’ broadcast platforms left, a place where businesses and brands can get unfettered insight into what fans are saying, and more tied into the information users get, whether querying AI or Google.

Sports are not new to Reddit; there have been tons of engagement and conversation happening on various subreddits for years. But now the teams and leagues themselves are taking notice. Reddit’s Sports Partnerships Lead Christine Wixted Wixted sat on a panel alongside MLB’s Vice President, Social Media & Innovation Cameron Gidari , and they discussed some of the use cases and value props for the platform.

  • Reddit is a text-heavy platform, because it’s about conversations. But that doesn’t mean photos and videos don’t have a place, multimedia can start and lead those conversations.
  • Anyone (including brands) can be welcomed when they provide value. For teams and leagues, that can mean content they’re not getting elsewhere. Don’t just post the highlight, post a unique camera angle or clips that’ll elicit conversation.
  • Niche down. This will come up again later with TikTok, but with the specific, interest-based nature of subreddits, there is opportunity to engage with non-sports communities. MLB mentioned their success posting in the weather subreddit, for example. AMAs (Ask Me Anything) can also be compelling ways to serve different niches; for example, could your head groundskeeper interact with the landscaping subreddit about caring for the grass at an MLB or NFL stadium? (my example!)
  • AMAs were brought up multiple times by both Wixted and Gidari, and Wixted mentioned ongoing development of the platform’s AMA product. That’s a telling sign! Gidari talked about the success of having AMAs with MLB’s team-specific beat writers, offering deep engagement and conversation when, for example, the Cubs beat writer does an AMA with the Cubs subreddit (again, my example). This is an easy but effective way to get started on Reddit.
  • You can get value from Reddit even if you never post. Wixted echoed what many marketers will say, characterizing Reddit as your free focus group. Lurk and listen, and, as Wixted recommended, leverage Reddit Pro — which is free, to set up listening flows to keep track of your brand and sport, and spot opportunities for engagement or pick up insights about your fans or potential fans.
  • You don’t need to worry about constantly feeding Reddit. It’s not as algorithm-driven as other platforms (posts primarily gain visibility through comments and upvotes), so you can pick and choose opportunities instead of stressing about a 24/7/365 presence
  • If you’re anxious or uneasy about treading into Reddit, where it’s true that brands are not always a welcomed presence, work through the subreddit moderators (or connect with the mods through the Reddit partnerships team)
  • Wixted talked through some of Reddit’s near-term priorities and roadmap, so pay attention. She mentioned: Continued devleopment and evolution of their video product, improving their mobile app UX, further development of their AMA product (such as scheduling, RSVPs, video answers, activation within AMAs), building more publisher tools and verifications, and enhancing the live event experience with features like live stats, polls, custom flair, and game highlights (my note: just check out the r/CFB subreddit on a college football Saturday, for example!).
  • My personal Reddit experience (from running Slyke) — the organic opportunity (and paid) is very real. Definitely be mindful of posting as a brand, you may share the same content under a non-brand handle. Think about posts that will start conversations, and note that users are willing to click off to a link to consume content that’ll funnel back into the conversation on the thread; I’ve had posts reach millions and drive considerable clicks. I’ve also found cost-effective ads (but be mindful of objectives). And do your research — Reddit Pro and Gummy Search can be helpful, jumping into subreddits and searching them or filtering by Best/Hot/Top over different time periods, and test different posting formats (link, text-only, carousel, video, etc.). I’ll also note, for a verrrry small marketer like myself, the Reddit ads team is extremely help and hands-on

Learning from the SMSports OGs

Depending on when you mark the unofficial start of the social media x sports era, the field as a profession is about 10-15 years old. It really did start with entry-level staff and, yes, some interns. The first pros whose job it was to write tweets, hit publish on Facebook, and navigate the early days of social media have grown up in the space, many in senior leadership or still hanging around the industry otherwise, continuing to evolve with it.

A few of these ‘OGs’ hit the stage to reflect on the past, analyze the present, and lend insight and inspiration to those coming up and molding the next era now.

  • “Likes don’t pay the bills.” Justin Karp , an OG now at NBC Universal, isn’t the first to utter that phrase, but it captures the elevated place of social media in any business now. Counting engagements is fine, but now we have to ask ‘so what?’ multiple times in planning add measurement to ensure those engagements and that reach is connected to business goals. That could mean reaching certain audience, driving home messaging, gaining actionable insights and feedback from fan engagement and comments, tying to sales, affecting recruiting outcomes and interest (for college sports), and driving tune-in, subscriptions, sign-ups, etc.
  • Platforms and what content and packaging work on said platforms change. So audiences. The point is you always have to be mindful of evolving, an insight elucidated by the Las Vegas Raiders’ Gavin Rivera. Learn to love the space as a science to continually study.
  • There are still only 24 hours in a day and yet an ever-growing supply of content and options competing for that attention. So everything has to start with a compelling story. Regardless of mediums, platforms, and presentation, the story must be one worth telling.
  • Rivera demonstrated decisiveness, explaining that we must fully comprehend the brand of the organization and know how to implement it across the board. You should be able to articulate the ‘why’ behind every post, heck, every word, and edit. The industry has grown up.
  • Karp has spent a lot of time and effort to drive tune-in with live sports broadcast by NBC and its platforms. And a key insight, with broad implications for sports pros, is that sports fans have passions and interests beyond sports. They follow whatever stories, memes, and trends are popping in areas beyond sports. So how can you ensure your game feels culturally relevant, significant enough to command engagement and attention by the biggest audience?

Lessons and ROI with Losing Teams

“Don’t read the comments” was never a good idea. Sure, there is bound to be vitriol and salty language, especially in the lean times for teams, but there is no better way to hear from your fans at scale than social media. It’s a constant source of feedback and vibes, in general and for specific content and campaigns.

If you sift through riff-raff, there is gold in all those fan voices and finding those insights is another way the social media team can deliver meaningful value up to the c-suite. This was one of themes at the conference overall and in a discussion featuring social media and content leaders from the Chicago White Sox (Tim Brogdon ), Carolina Panthers (Alex Grant), and Diana Smith (Charlotte Hornets), three teams from three different leagues who share this one thing in common — their teams have suffered a spate of losing seasons, of varying degrees, in recent years.

  • Remind yourself that the fan sentiment expressed on social media is often unrelated to your performance as a content and social media team, it’s the team performance they’re peeved about. Don’t get down about all the aspersions, but do look for patterns and opportunities within it. When you do something, creating content or commenting, for example, that shows fans you’re listening and addresses a common sore spot, that goes a long way.
  • What do you do when the season is shot? It’s tough when fans can all recognize that this team just ain’t going to win much, let alone contend this season. The advice for this issue included maximizing the effort around things that fans are excited and feeling positively about. That could mean schedule release, the draft, free agency, training camp, fan traditions and community. You may recognize storylines that fans are interested in; if so, build on that.
  • If it’s driving behavior, the content is valuable. Fans may not want to hear from you as much amidst losing, but don’t necessarily take negative sentiment or even lower engagement to automatically mean the content didn’t work. Pay attention to other metrics like sends/shares, watch time, and reach, too.
  • Coaching up is an important skill. You need to be able to communicate and explain strategic decisions to senior leaders and execs in various departments. If you post less, those preseason engagement and growth goals are not gonna be reached. If we want our social media to be among the best amongst our peers, here’s what that’s going to take and why it makes sense. The White Sox’s Brogdon also spoke about high-level conversations about how the team’s self-awareness and even use of memes would help shift the public narrative a bit, and deflect negative attention on the team to more positive attention on the social media team’s approach.
  • ‘Some ideas are worth waiting for.’ This paraphrase, via another paraphrase from the Hornets’ Smith was about not tossing aside ideas when fan sentiment is low, but saving some of them for when the right time comes. Talk to any staff at losing teams and there’s a good chance they have some ideas for content or even strategic direction for when the team becomes a winning one.
  • Brogdon talked about developing a Whtie Sox fan persona, which guides core strategy and decisions, and enables more thoughtful conversations around the team’s approach. Overall, the panel has a good handle on documenting voice, tone, and brand guidelines, so everyone knows the gospel guiding the strategy and post-to-post decision making.
  • This panel and others discussed non-traditional KPIs. Engagement is great, but there is so much more value to be tracked and framed. The Panthers’ Alex Grant even mentioned how player comments on content and their feedback as a good sign. As noted earlier, using social listening and comments to drive actionable recommendations and insights, whether based around fan experience [a pain point at the game], reaction to an activation or promotion, or an emerging affinity. Consider community development goals, too. When fans are starting their own conversations and conversing (hopefully respectfully!) with each other, that’s a good sign. If it starts to feel like the team and its fans have inside jokes or their own language, that’s pretty cool.
  • STN Digital’s David Brickley went into what we mean when we say ROI. Understand the true objective — there is a difference between a marketing and a sales campaign, he said. Not everything is about sales, the objective could be community growth, reaching a specific demo, etc.

Live Coverage and Content

Content producers and leaders from three very different leagues and sports, NASCAR, MLB, and the PWHL, spoke about covering events/games and getting content to the feeds quickly (and why that matters).

  • Major League Baseball games are full of highlights. They can’t always predict when they’ll be a an incredible defensive play or a monstrous home run, but when it happens they want to own the moment and get it out quickly. MLB’s Brett Blueweiss said the goal is ‘field to feed’ in two minutes, and noted they typically have three different angles to share to make the most of the moments. An over-arching theme was the value of sharing unique content. Plenty of accounts can post the broadcast highlight, but what is the content that only YOU have?
  • While most sports events take place with fields and courts that are circumnavigable, NASCAR’s Alejandro Alvarez knows he and his content producers can’t possibly be everywhere in their massive speedway venues. So it helps them to be a bit more intentional about the content they want to capture and why. The overall goal, he said, is to convey the visceral experience of being at the race and all the energy and atmosphere of the event.
  • Both Blueweiss and Alvarez said that data often shows that mobile content (phone-captured) performs better than more polished content shot with more professional video/photo equipment. It looks more like real life, so it’s more relatable, they surmised. Alvarez said the memorable line that ‘the best camera is the one in your hand,’ whether that’s a DSLR or an iPhone. But also be smart about it, recognize the moments where one device or the other makes more sense. Overall, showing the data can also help destigmatize any qualms about phone-captured content that some may harbor.
  • There’s always risk of montony. Sports are about routine, by design, so content can get stale if every game day looks virtually the same with the live content captured. Some of the recommendations to combat this included giving your on-the-ground content creators some agency to roam around the venue to find unique angles or scenes. And let these talented producers try new things, they can bring good ideas to the table. Even small tweaks, too, can make something feel fresh for fans.

The Perfect Couple: Design and Social

Design and social media are inseparable. The best marriages can make 1+1 > 2, with creative that syncs with the content and copy to enhance fandom and enliven an intentional branding. Every good marriage requires communication, honesty, and compromise, and the discussion among design and social pros from the University of Tennessee’s Athletics and the Atlanta Falcons was full of helpful tips and insights.

  • Distinct creative looks and techniques are ownable, and can augment brand identioty and equity, stated the Falcons’ Director of Social Media and Influencers, Ryan Delgado .
  • Tennessee’s Evan Ford explained how the Vols (Volunteers) have creative boundaries around a sandbox in which colleagues can play. This helps maintain integirty while not stifling creative riffs among the school’s many teams. The Vols’ Kellen Hiser (Assistant AD, Digital and Creative Strategy) said that knowing the why behind creative elements and decisions can help inform playing within the guardrailed sandbox and guide future asks, too.
  • In a nod to the potential for numbness and montony from otherwise awesome creative, there were recommendations about. how small tweaks can mitigate such risks. That could be changing up the font or composition on the creative, or even just the presentation; a new approach to carousels or Reels covers, for example, or a different introductory frame for a Stories post.
  • Game days can move rapidly (of course!), so it helps to prepare and plan from a content and creative perspective, too. That means scenario planning, so all sides are ready for potential moments. It’s also good to know who is supposed to be where and when, so when content happens, someone is in the right place at the right time, and the director leading the content execution knows who to call on for the content.
  • A subtle but important point of discussion was honing the creative process from all sides. It can make a big difference when a request or brief is well-written and an informed, reasonable timeline is provided. Knowing how to give and receive feedback are underrated skills. And don’t forget to ensure all sides know the purpose of the creative, how will it be used and why (and if it goes unused, why was that the case?). Close the loop on performance and feedback, that’s a complete creative cycle.
  • You can win with consistency. Not every post or piece of creative needs to be a home run, consistently hitting singles and doubles can drive consistent impact.
  • I just loved the Falcons’ Jack Ozmer (Graphic Designer) talk about crafting a team identity that’s consistent across visual and voice. That’s the crux of a lot of this synchronization and synergy of design and social, helping to build that cohesive brand.

TikTok Tips

TikTok continues to be a force in social media and no other platform has been more valuable in broadening the scope that sports can penetrate. The discussion on the TikTok panel was centered around March Madness and creators, and was packed with insights for general application, too.

  • Search and intentional discovery remains a big priority for TikTok. The moderator of the panel, Kenny Yansen (TikTok leads for sports broadcast partnerships) showcased the key ways the platform activated around TikTok and the tournaments’ hub and search were front and center. TikTok in general remains a major search platform and it appears they’re continuing to lean into that behavior. When was the last time you searched your brand, team, or partners?
  • Bleacher Report’s Louise Chouinard (Senior Producer, Field Content) articulated their approach to TikTok, embracing a culture of experimentation. And not all good ideas will hit on TikTok the first time you post them. Sometimes posting a second or third time, with or without tweaks, can hit. She also noted the opportunity to experiment and ‘flood the feed’ during those high times, such as during March Madness. Some of that creative spaghetti will stick, reach new audiences, and inform future practices, too.
  • Content creator and former pro basketball player Trey Phils (and Yalie!) advised to not be afraid to flop. You just have to post. Get reps and try stuff. One of the features of TikTok your content doesn’t get automatically served at scale to users, let alone followers. Only the good content does. The bad content barely gets seen by anybody, so don’t sweat the flops. If you trip and fall while walking and nobody’s around to see it, who cares? (my example there, haha)
  • When you work with creators, select creators whose style and content fits what you (and the brand) are seeking, said Chouinard. Then let them cook. If you try to force something that deviates from the creator’s content style, that’s not good for anyone.
  • Lean into niche when you can (and when it’s relevant). TikTok has ‘unmatched discoverability,’ said Chouinard. Oftentimes niche sports or niche topics can over-perform, so look for those opportunities and lean into it. She cited an example of an interview with Stephen Nedoroscik (the bespectacled pommel horse hero for Team USA Olympic men’s gymnastics team) in which his love for the video game Rocket League came up. TikTok did its thing, getting that content to Rocket League aficionados on TikTok and the post took off.

The Growth and Opportunity of Women’s Sports, Athletes, and Content

No sports industry event can take place without a discussion about women’s sports. The growth is undeniable, the athletes influential, and it feels like we’re still just getting started.

  • One of the content motifs that came up as a propellant, with benefits for women’s and men’s sports and cultural relevance was athlete collabs. That could be across teams in the same sport, teams in the same city, teammates together, or no natural connection like that at all. Numerous female athletes have wider reach on social media, and many are just better at social, even if the teams and leagues foir which the male athletes’ have bigger overall fan bases, for the most part, which means both sides stand to gain. Audiences can multiply quickly with collabs.
  • Women’s sports athletes are inviting new brand categories and activations into the fold. Beauty and feminine hygiene brands, for example, now have a natural platform in sports that’s growing in scale, and these athletes are creating new opportunities through content like GRWM (get ready with me). Women are, in general, more willing to be vulnerable on social media, which makes them more relatable to fans, and more effective and authentic brand ambassadors.
  • There is a tangible shift in the way brands play within women’s sports, too. While in the past their activations often came across as patronizing, like an act of charity. Now, it’s more about celebrating women’s sports and the athletes as legit superstars performing impressive athletic achievements.
  • Fans of women’s sports are fans. They’re often more vehement and even tribal, which helps create a valuable platform for women’s sports. When other leagues/teams or brands engage authentically with women’s sports teams and athletes, these tribes often come with them, and bring their passion and devotion.

Understanding, Activating, and Community Building with Fans

It’s easy when you’re the legacy team account. (Okay, not easy, but stay with me) But how do you become a relevant presence for fans when you’re a media outlet, an upstart content and competition company, or even a multi-trillion-dollar corporate brand? There some insights and ideas with broad applications that I picked up in a discussion with the pros helping to engage communities and fans for ALLCITY Network, Overtime, and Microsoft.

  • ALLCITY’s Parker Sperry (VP of Partnership Marketing) spoke about how ALLCITY, the parent company behind localized media companies (DNVR, PHNX, among others) thinks about serving fans throughout their gameday journey. From pregame to in-game to postgame, what can they do to engage their fans and add value?
  • Sperry also spoke about positioning their talent to be brand ambassadors, in addition to how they work with creators. They want to offer fans something unique, so they’ll oftne let their creators try ideas in the moment and overall think about formats that are outside the box. They’re not trying to be traditional media.
  • Overtime’s Mike Kaufman (Director of Social Strategy) appreciates the platform they have and the communities they can create and serve. He discussed the importance of listening to and learning from athletes (and their parents) to better serve them. He also spoke about discovering communities they can help, using their platform to fill programming gaps and serve those communities fans fans.
  • Microsoft’s Joey Maestas , a social media and sports vet who today helps Microsoft market its AI as Social, Influencers & Video Lead for Copilot. In devising strategy, the north star for him is to consider what use cases would their audience care about? That guides the creators they work with (and how), the activations they produce, and the content they create.

A few more

Not everything fit in the sections above, so here are a couple other things that stuck with me.

  • It’s always instructive to pay attention to what the major platforms advise, so we were all at rapt attention when Meta addressed the crowd. Kristen Oh (Sports Partnerships at Meta) shared a breakdown of Instagram’s many products, and how organizations can think about using each. While nothing is absolute, the overview included: Utilize the feed for curated highlights, Stories for ephemeral moments, short and entertainment-focused videos for Reels, go Live and be interactive with fans, and connect with core fans (in general, for specific events, for sub brands, for athletes) in Channels.
  • Meta also reviewed Threads. It’s no secret that adoption and engagement on Threads is a big priority for Meta right now, and it was informative to learn how they speak about Threads and the frameworks for success on the platform. View the linked image for the full slide summing up the big ideas, but in brief they presented 4+ recommendations to build a community and engaging presence on Threads. 1) Post authoritative content like highlights and behind-the-scenes, 2) ‘Own the moment’ by sharing content that makes a statement or echoes what fans are feeling, 3) Tap into creators and commentators by developing ambassadors and elevating community voices, 4) Drive Community engagement by empowering everyday fans. Ultimately, consistently engage with fans and with the community, and that’ll go a long way on Threads.
  • STN Digital’s David Brickley cited the old cliche ‘Your network is your net worth.’ But it wasn’t just about how who you know helps you get hired at your next job. It’s about being able to make things happen, too. He’s right in it, as a founder and leader of an agency, but he added another framing to the old aphorism, if there’s a big activation or content campaign to execute, do you have the rolodex of trusted agencies or freelancers to call into action? Building that network is valuable, particularly as you ascend. to more senior roles.

That’s over 4,000 words above. If you made it all the way here, whether you read this in a single sitting or sections at a time, I hope you feel smarter having learned what I learned. Since there is so much, here are some of the lasting themes and insights to ensure you take with you:

  1. Social has grown up — from “vibes” to a strategic, business-impact engine that drives tune-ins, ticket sales, sponsorships, marketing objectives and deeper fan insights.
  2. The communities for your content are broader than you think — Think beyond sports content and communities, and add value to others. Try sharing relevant content to niche subreddits and TikTok fandoms.
  3. Measure what matters — count engagements and views remain important, but aim to tie posts and performance to business goals (tune-in, brand messaging and pillars, marketing communications, community growth, brand affinity, partner activation).
  4. Empower your creators and colleagues — Formalize guardrails; the goal is not to micromanage, but invite safe experimentation, so creators, freelancers, and coworkers can unearth fresh angles and creative ideas.
  5. Content and Social are Strategic — Articulate the why behind the strategy, content, and creative. Decisions and direction should make sense because they align with the why.
  6. Experiment without fear — on TikTok and beyond, embrace rapid “fail fast” iterations; only the best content surfaces, so don’t sweat the misses. You may even reach communities you never thought about
  7. Lean into under-tapped fandoms — women’s sports, niche athletes and underserved communities hold high-value audiences hungry for genuine curation and context.

Somehow, this barely scratches the surface of all the knowledge to gain and stories to hear from the presentations at Gondola. Not to mention all the conversations on the side and the relationships formed outside of the official sessions.

Thanks to the team at Gondola (led by the legend Jared Kleinstein) for putting together a tremendous event and to all the speakers for being so thoughtful and generous and energetic with their discussions. If you haven’t checked out the Gondola platform, I encourage you to check it out, explore the content and creators, learn about the features, and sign up for an account. Visit Gondola

And shoutout to my employer Greenfly, who got several unsolicited shoutouts from the guest speakers, praising our software and service for being so valuable to their content operations and ability to achieve business goals.

Content Strategy, Social Media

The Content Flywheel: How Strategic Social-First Storytelling Creates Premium Value in Sports

We’re in a golden age of content in the sports world.

Think about all the new categories of content that have sprung up in and around sports in the last decade. It feels normal today, but fans didn’t always get to consume content about athletes’ fashion choices. They didn’t get to learn about what went into landscaping the field’s grass or get an inside look at the planes and hotels that are part of the athlete experience. It’s hard to remember a time before fans knew about players’ tastes in music, food, and pop culture, let alone their takes on the controversies of the day, like whether the dress is blue or a hot dog is a sandwich.

It’s still sports content. But it’s so much more.

The evolution is not limited to subject matter outside of gameplay. Incredible plays and magic moments still generate massive engagement and exposure, but they’re often just the starting point to richer storytelling. Today, moments get magnified. The live broadcast remains paramount (for now), but as sports fans increasingly consume clips and feeds more than live broadcasts, the opportunities that this new golden era of content presents feel limitless.

Russell Simon saw it happen in real-time. He and his colleagues at the National Football League (NFL) realized that fans couldn’t get enough content. The infinite scroll of the social feeds meant the engagement to earn from fans’ insatiable appetittes was limited only by the volume of quality content the leagues and teams could produce from their weekly live events (aka games). Thus was born the live content correspondent program (LCC), which today is a staple of major leagues around the world.

“We had creators in every market shooting mainly video content on a mix of DSLR and phone, primarily in the beginning, and we realized pretty early on that we had accidentally created a new rights category of real-time, social-first content from every game,” said Simon, who today is a partner at Zero Blitz Media, which works with brands, athletes, and creators to produce premium social-first content. “We had the best moments from the minute the first player walks in the door for arrivals until the game ends, and you get a player signing off, speaking directly to the fans 20 seconds after the game ends. It started to very quickly open up a world of possibilities just on game day.”

It wasn’t that the LCC program was capturing solely never-before-seen content. Game broadcasts had evolved across sports, driven by innovations in the 1990s and the influence of NFL Films, to show the players walking in the arena before games (so-called ‘arrivals’), amplifying increasingly ostentatious celebrations, and showcasing unique pregame player routines, among other elements. But where broadcast directors saw quick shots to intersperse or bumpers heading into breaks, Simon and the producers and leaders behind the LCC program saw the potential for something more. The otherwise afterthought shots and sights and sounds could be elevated and, in many of the social feeds today, are the main event, garnering more engagement and reaching more diverse audiences than even the most incredible catches, dunks, or hits ever could.

“I would say it was really about presenting [the content] in more of a social first native experience was really what the LCC program did,” said Simon. “We were able to take a shot, a really cool entrance shot of Patrick Mahomes or a really well-dressed player, and we were able to take that literally seven second moment from just something that flashes across the pregame show to a really elevated moment that can live across social, across the player channels, across this whole distribution network.”

The program continued to get even better because the LCCs (live content correspondents) stationed at each game brought their own ideas and vision to the content. (One of those talented LCCs, David Kushner, is Simon’s partner at Zero Blitz Media today.) They got the basics down pretty quickly, ensuring they were in place to capture all the big plays. But give creatives time and agency, and let them also bring their own flair to the production process. Simon and his team saw these LCCs evolve the content over time. And, before long, the program had not just the trust of the league and its teams, but also the interest in this unique cache of content.

“You can teach people how to shoot a football game, you know, where to stand, the best spots to be to maximize your chances of getting the best moments,” Simon explained. “I would say that the LCC program became a place where your skills and experience and the work that you had put in to get to that point put you in a place to shine and grow in terms of being able to capture the best moments as they happen very quickly became just table stakes where everyone is going to be very solid and have sort of this the level that we would expect. And then it was how you go beyond that and that, you know, all of our creators were able to sort of make their own in a different way…”

Simon continued: “On Sunday, we were there with them for 15 hours managing all of our creators, making sure that we captured everything we needed to capture, beyond just the moments, if there were special sponsor asks, special player asks, you know, really being cognizant of how we could be helpful to this ecosystem that we built out. And that’s really what made it effective. People trusted us…”

The value produced from the LCC program was magnified exponentially when that NFL ecosystem was activated. When one thinks of ‘social-first’ content, it conjures ideas of content in the social feeds, naturally. But this content isn’t just for followers of the team and league accounts. It’s not even just for the social networks. That’s just the start. When you take that content and throw gas in the distribution engine, the ceiling for reach, engagement, and value grows higher. When you take that content and utilize it as ingredients for more substantial stories, the radius of the content’s effects spreads wider and deeper.

“So Justin Jefferson scores a touchdown and does The Griddy [to celebrate a score], and then he’s got that video from an LCC ready to post right when he gets to the locker room,” said Simon about the dance that the Minnesota Vikings wide receiver made popular among NFL players. “It was Hey NFL fantasy, when people draft Patrick Mahomes, can they see all of the content that we’ve captured from him during a game and get that alert to be like, Oh wow, he just did something cool, let’s put it on fantasy. It was, Hey, [to] our college partners, Justin Jefferson’s got a big following at LSU, LSU, Here you go. Take this footage and make it something that will reach your audience. People are creating GIFs and sending GIFs in their text chat with their friends. Let’s take this Griddy dance that Justin Jefferson just did that we just shot and put it on Giphy. Hey, let’s tell a story about the dance on the NFL’s TikTok channel. Let’s bring in an influencer to do the Griddy with Justin Jefferson and make a viral moment out of that. Let’s, of course, give that footage to ESPN, NBC.

“The program worked because we were able to take one moment or something that happened in a game and make it so much more by building out our, I’ll call it the creator ecosystem.”

Stick some compelling, social-first content into the flywheel and that’s how you develop new fans while also giving existing fans more avenues to engage and content. That insight drove Simon and his NFL colleagues to dive in deeper (and guides him at Zero Blitz Media today). And the upside of producing content in AND around the fringes of sport, combined with the interest-driven algorithms of social and creator distribution engines, and you have the recipe to reach more messaes than ever.

Simon elaborated: “There’s definitely an element of any good strategy right now in terms of how you reach and grow beyond your core fans,” he said. “I think a lot of that, frankly, is stuff that is not just the highlight, but talking to the doctor, talking to the equipment manager. We worked on a show when I was at the league on the [business development] side, ‘Most Interesting Jobs’. That’s a show that my fiancé will sit down and watch, and think is really interesting, and they’re barely showing a highlight at all. Like, the stories around the game, there’s only going to be more opportunity in there.”

Early in Simon’s career, he worked on Snapchat’s live stories. Fans on the ground at live events (Simons focused on sports) submitted content to Snapchat and Simon and his colleagues took those submissions (sometimes supplemented by Snapchat producers onsite at events) and curated them, sometimes adding in graphical and post-production elements, for users to enjoy on the Snapchat app. These were decidedly social-first and mobile-first videos, clearly captured by fans using their phones, giving the content a cinéma vérité feel. Users tapping through live stories felt like they were there. It was cool.

It didn’t take long for ‘Stories’ (even if not ‘live’) to become a new content format across platforms. (Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel jokingly calls himself ‘Meta’s VP of Product for a reason.) But there’s a next level to social-first content now, to not rest on the engagement it captures in real-time, but to build on it. Content is currency as much as it ever was, and in this golden era of content, organizations — and potential sponsors — appreciate the value of quality content. The ROI picture is developed, we’ve arrived. As Simon and his partner build Zero Blitz Media, they know that when good content is the north star, everything else follows from there.

“If you make really engaging content, good things will happen; if you make good stuff, good things will happen,” he said. “It may take some time, but even when there’s a brand integration in it, we’re focusing on making quality work, and the monetization is going to follow. Obviously it’s a balance, but we see brand dollars and ad dollars flowing towards our world for a reason, and it’s because people are spending their time there, and good things are going to stand out.”

WATCH OR LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH RUSSELL SIMON

READ THE SNIPPETS

College, Esports, Fan Development, Social Media

What You Need to Know about Esports and Fan Development: The Challenges, the Opportunities, and the Promising Paths Forward

There aren’t many casual esports fans. There are loads of casual video game fans, but esports fans are avid, fanatical, and extremely engaged.

That oversimplified reality is both a challenge and an opportunity for the present and future of esports.

Esports haven’t had time yet to build generational fandom (even though fandom spans age ranges). It’s not as easy to attract find ‘casual’ fans who may flip through a broadcast network on a weekend, get exposed at a sports bar, or see some incredible highlights on ESPN or other sports media. And esports isn’t like other ‘sports’ — that’s obvious, but not in the way you think; it’s like trying to bucket all stick-and-ball sports into a single catch-all category. ‘Esports’ spans tons of ‘titles.’ The collection of popular esports titles like League of Legends, CS:GO, Valorant, Fortnite might as well be basketball, football, baseball, soccer, etc. And yet far more people have played a video game than have played in a football game. Some of the most popular global individual figures are gamers. Some of the biggest live events in the world are esports events.

So what’s stopping esports from emerging from the burst bubble of esports in recent years and what caused the so-called ‘esports winter’ in the first place?

Brendan Hall has a unique lens into esports. Prior to trading in grass fields for massive monitors, Hall covered ‘traditional’ sports for years, covering Super Bowls and Stanley Cups before making his way into esports. He witnessed the rise — as investment money poured in and teams were being sold for millions — and the subsequent regression. He watched as leaders trie to copy and paste the prevailing paradigms from stick-and-ball sports into the esports world. And it didn’t work. But every esports event he attends is a reminder to Hall of the high ceiling for esports, if they can nail the right business models.

“Live events are freaking special. It’s where the casual fan becomes the loyalist,” said Hall, who worked Oxygen Esports, part of the Kraft Entertainment Group, parent owner of the New England Patriots, among other entities, before he became Esports Coordinator at Endicott College. “But [live events] are also expensive to put on. And I don’t think the model should be totally predicated on selling a bunch of sponsorships either. So I think it’s hard to make money.

“I think, for whatever reason, you sometimes see, orgs leaning too early into the merch thing, like, Oh, let’s be 100 Thieves and we’ll do random drops around Southern California. We’ll do these FOMO events, when you show up and when they’re gone, they’re gone. [100 Thieves] has been working two decades on building that…It takes a long time to build that kind of community. The one thing that this industry could use more of probably is patience with seeing things out.”

Hall noted the discord between investors anticipating massive returns and the need for esports organizations and teams to build up community over time. As he made his way into esports, he took the community-building to heart, understanding that loyal fans can’t be taken for granted. Esports fandom IS still developing and IS a relatively new part of culture, so creating that sense of community and belonging and feeling part of something bigger is paramount, Hall explained.

“Every month or so, we’d have watch parties, free to attend, just show up,” said Hall, recalling his days with teams like the Boston Breach, “and any fan that showed up, I would just give him my cell phone number and say, ‘Hey, text me anytime.’ And sometimes they’d text me at 1:00 in the morning [about] roster movement. ‘Why did you drop this guy? What’d you think?’ ‘Oh, I’ll ask Murph when I get in in the morning, but I don’t know.’ I think they thought it was so cool that a director-level guy was willing to open the book for them and be transparent with them, and let them feel like they have a seat at the table, let them feel like this was their home.

“I think the reality is you have to be willing to meet your community where they are, and for me that includes face to face, text me anytime, you might piss off my wife, but so be it. Because it makes them feel like they have a place where they can be themselves and they have a place where they really actually have an outcome in a thing.”

The star player nature of sports has been part of esports virtually since the start. While more stable rosters and hereditary, geography-based fandom has led many traditional sports fans to ‘root for laundry,’ as comedian Jerry Seinfeld famously put it, esports fandom has always been player-centered. Such fandom can be iether a feature or a bug, depending on perspective. It means fans from all over the world will watch and attend events to catch a glimpse of their favorite players in action, regardless of which team they’re on. But it also means trying to recreate the franchise models in other sports is a bit more challenging.

But Hall sees such fandom and sees opportunity. Traditional sports see player-driven fandom more than ever now, whether it’s Messi bringing millions of fans to Inter Miami CF or LeBron taking his legion of fans from Cleveland to Miami to LA. The vital next step is to capitalize on the influx of fans, capturing them with content and storytelling that enhance affinity and avidity at all levels.

“At Boston Breach, like the amount of fans we had from all over the country, not just Boston, so to say we’re Boston’s team, well, this guy’s a fan of the Breach because they signed a certain player,” said Hall. “With the Uprising, we had fans in Omaha, Nebraska, because of players that we signed that they had followed when they played Overwatch. That’s also difficult to understand. That’s why I’m not so bullish on the franchise scene.”

He continued: “When I would ask people at our watch parties like, ‘Dude, you could watch this from your home on Twitch, why’d you drive three hours from Maine to come to Foxborough?’ And [they’d] say, ‘Well, yeah, but you guys have Methodz (Anthony Zinni) here and I like watching him play Call of Duty on Twitch.’ That’s a real thing. So the more you can establish relationships with those fans who might not meet you in person, through content, through the storytelling, that’s going to go a long ways.”

It’s those relationships and that community of esports fans that can transform the millions of video game-playing individuals into esports enthusiasts and fans. That’s part of the calculus at play, and the opportunity Hall sees for esports to reach the heights once envisioned. Playing video games is such a universal pasttime and the esports community is so welcoming and open, so it doesn’t require squinting to see the possibilities on the horizon.

“I’ve worked in the NFL. I’ve worked in sports media. I’ve worked in tech. I’ve never met a community like esports that’s been as inclusive and open-sourced. It’s incredible”, said Hall, who in addition to running Endicott’s esports programs also teaches courses in marketing and esports. “So I just think if you believe in that community, you’re going to thrive in the long term because the numbers are pointing away. My friend Chris Postell, esports founder, does a lot of really good research on the college scene. 90%, or close to it, of students entering college are gamers, whether they want to admit it out loud or not. 77% of of millennial parents play with their kids at least once a week. I play Super Smash Bros with my daughters every night, and it’s it’s awesome. This stuff is not going away.

“But one of the other problems I see, go back to the basketball logic. No one owns basketball, right? Somebody owns Fortnite, and they can change the rules, pull the plug, whatever, whenever they want, and that’s terrifying for a lot of third parties trying to work within the esports ecosystem.”

Several different ‘sports,’ or gaming titles, came up throughout the conversation with Hall, so the latter point about who owns and runs these games, is a particularly salient part of the picture. Esports organizations often compete in several titles, but that’s not exactly how fandom works. A diehard Rocket League fan may not care to watch Call of Duty, a CS:GO fan may not give two rips about League of Legends.

Hall faces this conundrum head-on in building the esports program at Endicott. The biggest esports organizations face such choices, too. The way Hall sees it for the esports world at-large, they’re best off cultivating superfans around a title or two than trying to reach and claw for the attention of casual fans in hopes they’ll convert. The desire to grow the overall number, even at the expense of avidity, is admirable, sure, but it’s not the path to sustainability for the industry.

“I love this concept that Kevin Kelly, the great entrepreneur, wrote years ago about 1000 true fans,” explained Hall. “One of his all-time most read blog posts is about this idea that if you have 1000 fans that spend $100 a year on your work, that’s six figures in your pocket. So it’s more worth it to focus in on those loyalists because they’re going to end up spending more money with you over the long run.

“So, similar concept, right? Again, you talk about micro communities. I think you’re better off really focusing on a couple titles, and that’s where they have a lot of success.”

The avid players, the loyalists — that’s the goal. But you do have to start somewhere, of course. The underlying opportunity for esports is that casual fans already exist in spades. The path from casual gamer to esports fan isn’t linear, but the participation and organic exposure to the titles within esports cultivate a natural potential interest. If part of the magic of traditional sports is that any kid can grow up envisioning themselves hitting the game-winning home run or knocking down the buzzer-beater shot, that same sense of accessibility can last well past grade school for esports.

Hall reflected on those natural pathways, offering his real-life experience building up Endicott’s program — through coffee shop encounters.

“Where the Overwatch Championship Series, I think, has a chance, it feels more holistic, like it’s going to feel like almost a Premier League relegation-promotion kind of system, like, anybody can kind of come from the top,” said Hall, alluding to the meritocratic nature of pure esports. “That’s a system that feels like you can get behind, it comes from a place of more common sense, more aligned with how esports fans behave.”

Hall went on, describing the organic but opportunistic growth of his teams at Endicott: “All the Starbucks kids are on our Fortnite team now, because they were working at the Starbucks [near Endicott’s esports lab]. I’d come by every day, get a coffee, they’d come down here to their lunch break and they’re playing on the PCs between classes, and one of them, Sam, just got a Victory Royale last night for the first time all season. Six months ago, I was just bumping into him every day, buying a coffee from him at Starbucks.

“So the casuals, as they enjoy this place more, they’re going to want to learn how they can take the next step.”

Esports doesn’t need to mimic traditional sports to succeed, it needs to embrace what makes it different. The passion is already there. The player-first fandom, the global accessibility, the embedded community culture — all of it is fertile ground for something lasting.

It won’t happen overnight. Esports isn’t built to amass a cadre of casuals. The future of esports won’t be decided by flashy moments or headline deals, it’ll be built fan by fan, event by event, and through rich storytelling and deep connections. Video gaming isn’t going anywhere, so the potential for esports remains as bright as ever.

Content Strategy, Fan Development, General Marketing, Social Media

A Modern Approach to Fan Development: Earning Attention, Operationalizing Engagement, and Crafting Reasons to Care

If you’re reading this, it’s a minor miracle.

There is so much competition for attention and mindshare in general, let alone for sports teams and leagues. The established leagues have massive foundations of fans but want unending growth; meanwhile, myriad upstart and emerging leagues are competing to establish their base, often while concurrently growing broad awareness and interest in heretofore relative fringe sports.

It has never been easier to reach masses of people, but it has never been harder to win their hearts and minds.

So how should sports organizations think about earning new fans amidst a cutthroat world where every swipe, click, and second of attention has to clear an increasingly higher bar? And what does ‘fan growth’ even look like in 2025, with endless to ‘engage’ — that oh-so-ubiquitous but nebulous term?

Tom Halls has faced these challenges head-on throughout his career. Today, he and the team at SailGP aim to turn a centuries-old pastime that has persisted for years on the margins of the sports zeitgeist into a sports league that can command the attention of masses around the world. SailGP only had its first season in 2019, born in a perpetually connected world where hundreds of millions of videos get uploaded to platforms every day and social graphs and follower-based feeds were already starting to diminish. SailGP has hit some impressive follower numbers already, but I asked Halls about how meaningful a follower is in 2025 as content consumption and discovery look so different than it did a couple years ago, let alone last decade.

“Our follower growth target is still pretty aggressive for this season, but my point to [SailGP leadership] is if we’re showing an improvement in viewership, if we’re showing an improvement in engagement, if our engagement rate, which is super high, continues to retain at that amount, [that’s most important],” said Halls, who is the SVP of Social for SailGP following a career with stops at several sports organizations. “There are other ways to hook people in now with AI, whether that’s getting smart in how we sign people up top of funnel; at the very purest basis, like email marketing, databases, etc. How do we get them?…

“There’s always an end goal,” Halls continued, after remarking that UGC efforts are another strong signpost of an engaged fan. “A follow is nice, a comment is nice, but in an ideal world you’re watching the broadcast, you’re watching the live stream, you’re engaging, even better if you’re buying a ticket or merchandise. But we’re five seasons in. It takes time, and it takes leagues years to grow these pieces.”

Facebook introduced Pages in 2007. Instagram introduced business profiles in 2014. Those impressive follower numbers many profiles and pages can boast today are comprised of countless users who may not have logged in in a decade, let alone the bevy of bots that have accumulated over the years. That’s not to say one’s followers aren’t meaningful, it’s just that the follower ‘count’ alone falls short, leaving more questions to ask and more substance to (hopefully) uncover.

‘Engagement trumps followers,” said Halls, who spent years on the Meta sports partnerships team. “I’d rather take 150,000 engaged fans than 2 million passive followers,. And I will wager a decent amount of money that if you were to look at the vast majority of follower counts of the big brands, publishers, creators on platform now that have been there for 10-15 years, there is a rather decently-sized stagnant portion of fans.

“I don’t think your follower count opens doors in the same way with sponsors that it used to. I mean, we’ve just re-upped with Rolex for ten years. A brand like Rolex [is] smart, they look beyond follower count, they look at engagement, they look at audience makeup. Sponsors and commercial investors in sports are savvier now than they’ve ever been.”

There’s that word again — engagement. Any engagement is better than no engagement, first of all, but ‘engagement’ in sports can mean a lot of different things. Engagement could mean commenting on a post or creating UGC, it could mean buying some merch or buying a ticket to attend a competition. But no matter where among the engaged segments a user (sure, a ‘fan’) sits, the only way to increase the base of fans overall is to enlarge the surface area of exposure, the addressable audience that even knows you exist.

The key thing to keep in mind is that fan development is not a linear exercise. We can’t grow more diehards without growing more casuals. And we can’t grow more casuals without identifying and converting the curious (Halls discussed a segmenting of curious-casual-core fans). At the same time, the core audience can’t be taken for granted, with all the attention and efforts focused only on the casuals and curious. That’s the challenge and the opportunity — they all matter.

“My point always comes back to that core audience will always be there, and our goal is to increase the size of that core audience and gradually expand each part of that funnel as we go,” said Halls. “It’s okay if you don’t ever come to a race or ever buy merchandise in my eyes; you still have a value to us… When I talk to our commercial and financial teams… I’ll say [those fans are] not as valuable as someone that buys a ticket or a merchandise, but they are still a fan…”

It’s challenging but fun to seek out new fans. It’s easy to target and reach narrow audiences, but when you’re trying to find those potential curious and casuals, developing a broader and more diverse fan base, creativity, diversity of thought, and the willingness to try new things (and at times fail) are critical. The number of interests and trends, the scale of micro-communities, and the avenues of discovery are innumerable; the idea of diverse creative teams and canvassing ideas from everyone is not lip service to some noble ideal — it’s essential if you want a wide, heterogenous, growing fan base. For Halls and SailGP, creativity can come from anyone and anywhere. And in the increasingly algorithm-fueled world of content consumption and discovery, any quality content can find its audience.

“There’s a lot of creativity that flows through that team…So when someone thinks they’ve got a great idea, what we’re trying to do is ensure that that great idea has an audience and it has a fit for it — how do we utilise the fact that so many platforms these days have got A-B testing opportunities? said Halls, who lauded the ability to target unfamiliar audiences explicitly using Instagram’s Trial Reels. “With the ephemeral nature of social, it’s gone and forgotten in 24 hours if it tanks.

“It’s giving social teams that creative freedom and recognizing that what works for senior leadership isn’t going to work for the fan base. We create content based on what we know the platforms want versus what we know we want. And sometimes we have to let go of, you know, being super comfortable around some things, but it works.”

Halls and his team have learned what the platforms want. They know how to ‘go viral’ on TikTok or maximize engagement on Instagram. Sure, senior leaders may want to promulgate the incredible techniques of its athletes and the impressive analytics the competition delivers on its broadcasts — and there’s certainly an audience for all that — but they know that there’s nothing like a capsize or a man overboard if they want to reach millions (expand that surface area) on TikTok. Those viral clips are opportunities, the first touch point on a funnel where some nonzero portion of those millions of viewers will engage and progress along the fan funnel.

All those viral NASCAR crashes or hockey fights or unexpected incidents in SailGP (Halls referenced an innocent ferry interrupting one of their races) — those clips can be catalysts.

“We posted a clip on Instagram [and] we didn’t think anything of it,” said Halls, referencing a clip of a man nearly going overboard. “It did 40 million views in 24 hours. It hit 105 million views [overall]….We know why it went viral because it was eight seconds, you’re watching, you’re waiting to see what happens. When it does happen, you’ve got so many questions.

“And the way we parlayed that into follower growth was everyone that asked a question about that video, we tried to address it either in comment format, or we went and created explainer content around it. So why did he not fall over the boat? Why was he safe? There’s an explainer video and the fact they’re all tethered and they have to run with the tether. What was he even doing on the boat in the first place? Like, why did he fall off the side? It just looks like, because of the angle, it looked like quite a slow turn. Actually, it’s pulling three G’s at that point. Like the guy, you see him, it almost looks like he passes out. So there’s an explainer video on the G forces these guys are going through…

“So how do we introduce all these unique elements to our sport, or how do we introduce it to a new fan?”

There are stories behind every viral clip. And within those stories lie the elements that attracted the casual and the core fans in the first place. Getting the views, those micro-moments of attention, is just the first step. Are you ready when hundreds, thousands, or millions of fans are there sampling what you have to offer with an open mind to find a reason to engage and consume and learn more? Halls called out the alt-casts, so prevalent in sports now, as an example of trying to cater to new, curious or casually interested audiences. Drive to Survive got millions to sample an F1 race, but they’ll only stick around so long if they have no idea what’s going on.

“You have to make that explainer content simple enough that casual fans feel that they can get it,” said Halls, who was admittedly a relative sailing novice before joining SailGP. “And to me, that comes back to that ‘Explain it to me like I’m five’ principle.

“It’s a more subtle way of doing the Nickelodeon broadcast of the Super Bowl, how they break it down. I mean, we’re not at that stage…but that’s the space where we can play with creators.

“I’m still looking for my Snoop [Dogg]-Martha [Stewart] commentary combo. I can’t get Snoop and Martha, I don’t have those kinds of budgets, but can I do something with a KSI or a Kai Cenat; can we get them to commentate alongside?”

In addition to finding entry points and being ready to cultivate and educate the noobs when they do enter, it helps to give fans a reason to care. A sense of affinity and partiality, something and/or someone to root for as the boats compete for victory. It’s why SailGP produces their ‘Racing on the Edge‘ series (their version of Drive to Survive, essentially). The competition also take advantage of the natural patriotic inclination anyone, fan or not, to cheer on their country in any race.

“To me there’s a natural affinity to root for,” said Halls. “There’s a Canadian team, an American team. There are nationality minimum requirements for each of the teams, they’re nationalistic…”

But don’t mistake the fervent nationalism for jingoism. SailGP knows the best way for the competition to grow, the team valuations to rise, and everyone’s boats to rise (had to do it) is to work together. There are cross-team collabs, democratized sharing of data, and an overall collective that they’re building something special together.

Said Halls: “We have the rivalries and they can be really spicy, but I think everyone across the league and the teams and leadership at the moment recognizes that we have to grow as one unit.”

Fan growth isn’t about waiting for people to come to you—it’s about meeting them where they are, creating sparks of interest and curiosity, and steering them into easy entry points. The signals are everywhere, the bait is working—so cast wide, experiment boldly, and recognize every moment of attention as an invitation. The future fanbase is out there, a light breeze at your back. Come equipped with a plan, catch the right wind, and it’ll be smooth sailing ahead.

LISTEN TO THE FULL (EXCELLENT) INTERVIEW WITH TOM HALLS

READ THE SNIPPETS

Content Strategy, Fan Development, Social Media

Know Your Fan, Know Your Market: Creating Social Strategy That Fits Your Team

There is no social media strategy that’ll please everybody. There is no social media strategy that’s perfect for every brand.

It’s easy to get lost in a sea of best practices, adopt tactics that’ll drive any engagement, and try to be everything to everyone. But especially in sports, where dozens of local (though concurrently regional/national/global) brands are all marketing very similar products. They have fans who fell in love with the brand before color TV existed and fans who weren’t alive in a world without Instagram. There are teams with rich histories and those just getting started, some are perennial winners while others seem to be perpetually rebuilding.

Zach Galia has navigated all parts of this challenging world across NASCAR, NFL, and now MLB, and, through it all he’s learned the importance of understanding audience, platforms, and creative, intentional strategy and execution.

It was — relatively — in the beginning. When Galia started his career at Michigan International Speedway, a track that hosts NASCAR races, their goal was to reach, well, demographics and psychographs that basically lined up with Galia himself. So if the content appealed to him personally, that was a good sign that it’d appeal to their target audience. It was largely similar when he started with the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team he’s been a fan of for life. But when he got to Arizona, to lead the Cardinals’ social media, he faced a new challenge.

“I think with the Steelers it was similar to NASCAR. I was marketing to me, like a Steelers fan. I knew the lingo. I knew what the Steelers stood for because I had a lifetime of following along and understanding and knowing the history and knowing the players,” said Galia who was the Steelers’ first full-time social media hire before moving to the Cardinals right after the NFL Draft.

“Going from there to the Cardinals, where I wasn’t a fan and I didn’t know the history, I didn’t know the fan base…I picked up what I was planning to do for the Steelers [during the offseason camps and training] and dropped it in Arizona and said, here’s what we’re going to do. And it didn’t work. It didn’t have the same impact. It wasn’t the same…

“That was the first kind of, Oh, I’m not marketing to me anymore. Like, I need to learn the fan that I am marketing to. Different markets, different teams, different fan bases, you had to learn and figure out what they wanted to see and who they were and what they cared about…”

Galia didn’t grow up a Cardinals fan and didn’t know the Arizona market, nor did he come in on day one with a deeply rooted understanding of the history and brand of the Cardinals. But he learned. And through the process Galia was able to grow his acumen in strategy and social, gaining thoughtful understanding of who they were trying to reach with what messaging and why.

“That was a great exercise to like how social is grown,” said Galia of balancing tactics to reach and engage various fan segments. “You obviously want to do right by those diehard fans, but the more people out there that are talking about the Arizona Cardinals, the better.

“So you want to find casual fans, you want to find Suns fans who are looking for something to do on a Sunday, you want to find NFL fans who are like, Oh, that’s a funny video by the Cardinals, maybe I’ll follow along. So it’s like you want to create content that’s kind of accessible across the board, but also doesn’t — not offend, but it doesn’t patronize your diehard fans. So it’s a much more wide range of content.”

Leaders like Galia can (and do) research and learn about fan bases and teams over time, just as any marketer does for their respective brand and industry. But in an increasingly diverse and fragmented cultural and media landscape, with trends, tactics, and platforms that evolve so rapidly, it sure helps to have a diverse team that can contribute perspectives and help keep up with it all. Galia is smart and humble enough to know that it’s more effective and efficient to help others help him than to dictate with omniscience and omnipotence. So as Millennials gave way to Gen Z for that ‘young’ demo, Galia worked to empower and entrust his team to keep up with the kids.

“It started with me marketing to me, but now I’m 38 years old and I need to make videos for 16-year-olds on TikTok to make them interested in the Pirates,” said Galia, recalling the difference in perspective as he progressed through his career and the years passed. “That’s clearly not marketing to me anymore.

“So how do you do that? How do you empower your team, the people on your team that are closer to that age group to do that?… You have to build that trust with the people on your team because [they’re] going to know so much more about who we should be talking to in that age group than I do…So it’s always great to have people like that, and I have them on my team now, where it’s like, tell me what’s cool, and if you think it’s right, let’s go with it and let’s see what happens.”

Understanding the platforms and cultural zeitgeist unique to fan segments and demographics is but a piece of the pie, however. The NFL has 32 teams with 32 distinct brands and fan bases. The shift from a historic organization like the Steelers, for which fans across generations can close their eyes and see NFL Films montages of 1970s glory, to the Cardinals, which has only been in Arizona since the late ’80s and lacks a similar legacy, is a good illustration of the diversity across the league. The same cross-team distinctiveness prevails in most sports leagues around the world. For every Hollywood LA Lakers, there’s a grit and grind Memphis Grizzlies — and a plethora of others. The way fans look at their teams, and experience the seasons, aren’t just for media-driven narratives and social media debates — it affects how teams present themselves and market to their fans. Galia articulated this insight and described how it played out for him at the teams where he worked.

“I think you go back to the Browns when they were just awful, like 0-17, but [former Browns Social Media Manager] Allie Raymond, one of the best in this business with the Chargers now, everything they did was amazing. They had this lovable loser persona, and it just took on a mind of its own,” said Galia, who has had experience with winning and losing teams alike. “Whether you like the [Browns] or not, you loved their content and who they were. That wouldn’t work with the Pirates or with the Steelers, because the fan base is not going to be humorous about losing and performance like that. So it’s knowing and understanding and learning that.

“Same with the Cardinals,” Galia continued. “Like, you couldn’t be the lovable losers with the Cardinals because if the team wasn’t good, people had other things going on [and] just didn’t care. They would go to Suns games, they would watch the D-backs; like, it wasn’t a big deal. Whereas Pittsburgh, for better or worse, our fans care like crazy and they will let you know when you’re not doing well or when you are doing well and you’re still not doing well enough. Like, Pittsburgh fans care. The Cardinals fans, when they weren’t good, it was like, Oh, just let us know when you’re good and we’ll follow along again. So there are little kind of things that you have to learn, and the only way to learn is to be a part of it…

“So you can’t just be tone-deaf and be like, Oh, well, here’s a bunch of memes and it’s really funny because we’re losing and other teams do it so our fans will like it too. I don’t know if that’s the case.”

After spending the first several years of his career in the NFL, Galia made the move to Major League Baseball, going back home to the Pittsburgh Pirates — and going from 16 or 17 regular-season games to about 10x as much in baseball. So while a big win or a big loss in the NFL can color an entire ensuing week, and represent ~ 6% of the entire season, an incredible victory or devastating loss in MLB is a paltry 0.6%, for better or worse. It was a stark change for Galia, who recognizes the condensed windows for celebrations in baseball means they have to capitalize quickly when moments hit.

“In football it’s like you win on Sunday, you have until next Sunday to tell the story of every single thing that happened in the entire history of that game, you can highlight it in every way you want,” said Galia, who is the Director of Social Media and Content Strategy for the 100+-year-old Pirates franchise. “In baseball it’s like, okay, well, how do we do this effectively and quickly because as soon as the lineup goes up for the next game, no one cares what happened the night before.

“So I think it’s not necessarily a blessing and a curse, but like that’s the good and the bad about the baseball schedule is you get to turn the page really quickly, but sometimes you wish you didn’t have to turn the page so quickly. It’s tough.”

The packed MLB season also ups the ante to keep fans engaged and interested game after game, with the specter of monotony looming each day. Fans will scroll right by when daily content starts to become predictable and blends together from one day to the next. It’s not feasible to produce some masterpiece every day, but Galia and his team know that even small tweaks and little surprises and flair can capture attention consistently and ensure fans don’t fly by or tune out while being ready for unexpected opportunities.

“One, you got to keep things fresh,” said Galia, who has been with the Pirates since 2022. “Our creative team does an amazing job. We talk and plan on every template that could possibly be imaginable, we try and make [them] before the season starts just so we have it just in case something happens, because making graphics from scratch is going to take a long time and we might not have enough time.

“Even a starting lineup graphic — if you see the same starting lineup graphic 162 times, by the fifth time, no one’s paying attention to it. So again, our creative team has done a great job, we have 5 or 6 different versions of that, and we’ll make special versions for special weekends. Visually, the information is the same, still the nine players plus our starting pitcher — it’s exactly the same information, the same experience, but it’s packaged differently that at least catches your eye for an extra second instead of just zipping right past it because you already know what it is…

“Don’t let consistency be the enemy of creativity, he said. “Just because you have a plan in place and your brand is set and you know what content is going out; like, celebrate wins in different ways, use content in different ways, post content in different places and make the experience unique and keep people guessing — because as soon as they know what to expect from you, you’re done.”

Galia and his team know the Pirates will have their opportunities to capitalize on during the season, so they have a balance of proactive planning and extemporaneous creativity to make the most of special moments. Any baseball fan, heck any sports fan, was well-aware of some special times for the Pirates during the 2024 season, as rookie starting pitcher sensation Paul Skenes made his much-hyped debut. Skenes is one of many prospects to have made anticipated debuts for Pittsburgh the last couple of years. Galia knows each has a story to tell and can move the needle in varying ways. These are thoughtful, strategic conversations and plans that come together — again, with a healthy combo of preactive and reactive, so that no opportunity gets missed.

“We had so many guys debut and it was like, Okay, well, when Paul debuts or when Jared [Jones] debuts, or when person X debuts, where do they fall into kind of the zeitgeist of our players and who have been called up in the past?” Galia explained. “So you then try and figure out like, well then do we need to crank it up a notch and do even more or do we crank it down a notch and do a little bit, like just keep it kind of normal?…

“You kind of talk about it and make sure that you have a general plan and then, you know, three months later when it finally happens, it’s like, Oh, well, I came up with three other things, let’s do these instead. So it kind of works in both ways…You plan for what you can and then you react to everything else.”

A lot of this is about storytelling and brand building, creative execution and insight. And while certain key principles remain the same over time, constant change and adaptation is just as consistent a part of the game. Just consider in Galia’s career how many platforms have come and gone, product features that have arisen, and new opportunities and challenges to evolve the definition of good, effective, successful content.

Defining success is paramount for those working in social media. The reports and rankings, perhaps too often, showcase overall stats like engagement, reach, and views. The reality is more nuanced — you can feed the feeds to prioritize engagement, and most pros keep a close eye on what each platform is pushing in their recommendation engines at any given time, but achieving success is less about engagement bait and more about adapting your great content and brand activations to favor the forms that the fans and apps expect and want.

“If your plan is to do the same thing on every platform, you’re going to be okay on one of those platforms, but you’re going to fail on the other ones. Like, when you’re creating content, you’re creating these strategies to engage with your fans, but you also want to create content that the platforms value as well,” said Galia.

He continued: “If you’re not bringing in what the platforms value into your strategy, you’re going to miss the mark in some form or fashion… it’s a battle for every four seconds. You want to give someone what they’re looking for on the platform that they’re on…

“Keep your business goals in mind and what you’re trying to achieve, but put it in the packages and in the places that people are going to see it more clearly. So no matter what the goal is, you’re still not necessarily leaning into, like, ‘whatever Instagram’s goal is, is now my goal.’ It’s like now I know what Instagram’s goal is, so I can kind of tweak our strategy to make sure that more people see what my goal and our goals as an organization are.”

Toward the end of the interview with Galia, he recounted some of the more ‘viral’ posts from his time behind social media accounts in Pittsburgh and Arizona, specifically some that came together quickly. To the casual observer, such spur-of-the-moment success may feel like dumb luck with a dash of creative artistry — and there can be elements of that, sure. But it’s kind of kike the anecdote about famed artist Pablo Picasso being asked to draw a quick sketch, which took him minutes, but the price he charged was $1M francs. “The lady was shocked: ‘How can you ask for so much? It took you five minutes to draw this!’ ‘No,’ Picasso replied, ‘It took me 40 years to draw this in five minutes.'”

Where Galia has arrived after over a decade in sports and social is not too different from Picasso, in a sense. He and his team make thousands of micro-decisions every week, but they’re not made in a vacuum. Galia is informed by thinking about audiences, markets, goals, platforms, mediums, markets, strategies — those executions and ideas that take form in seconds in the hyper-paced nature of sports and social media are only possible because of years of experience and robust preparation.

In MLB, where Galia currently works, every swing, every pitch, every game is an opportunity to learn and get better. The same is true for the pros off the field — get better and get smarter with every post, every day. That’s the foundation for a Hall-of-Fame career.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH ZACH GALIA

READ THE SNIPPETS

Fan Development, Social Media, Social Media ROI

Building Brands Through Social Media: Lessons from Sports Marketing

It’s been a while since anybody really bought the whole ‘the intern runs the social media’ trope. It retreated into obsolescence long ago (ed note: But hell yeah, milk the intern for insights about young people’s habits and trending topics and behaviors).

Social media has become far too important to the organization, a font of value and insights. Sure, it can be annoying at times when a coworker who scrolls TikTok or has an Instagram page has constant constructive criticism of strategy and execution (they mean well!), but it’s only because the power of these channels is unquestioned. It’s a direct line to customers, an opportunity to develop a brand and cultivate evangelists, it’s the one constant touchpoint with the majority of fans/customers and potential future fans and customers.

Jared Harding was there for the genesis of such strategic importance of social media, before many began to connect the dots (a work in progress, still, for many organizations). But he understood early on that the increased attention by colleagues, the friendly ideas, the unending asks (editor’s words, not his!) — all of this was a clear signal: social media mattered more than anyone had fully realized yet.

“When I started observing the scrutiny that myself and our team was under, at first it felt like all of a sudden everyone started to care about what we were doing,” said Harding, who was with Kroenke Sports and Entertainment (aka KSE: Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Mammoth, among other properties), eventually coming to lead digital and content for the group. “But that was actually a sign that what we were doing was impactful for the business, and other people were starting to see it.

“Ultimately, businesses want to build revenue opportunities. There are a lot of other things that matter, but for a business to stay in business, it needs to produce revenue. So when I started finding ways to help other departments see the value and see how it could increase sales, could become an asset for our partners that previously wasn’t there, it didn’t exist, and now it’s a whole new realm of assets that could be monetized in that way.”

There’s no single paradigm for governing social media within an organization, whether for a unique entity like a sports property or an everyday b2c or b2b brand. For some it’s an extension of a communications or PR team, others have a dedicated digital practice, for some it may ladder up to a senior creative or content leader, while still others place social media within marketing. But no matter where social media sits, the impact of social isn’t confined to a single department — the new era that social media ushered in forced everybody to adopt a new way of thinking.

In discussing how social media got infused into every aspect of marketing, Harding invoked a phrase from Jason Mitchell, a co-founder of social media marketing agency Movement Strategy, ‘social-centric marketing.’

“That’s how I’ve seen it for years and that’s how I see it now, that the smartest marketers are looking at all marketing through the lens of social,” said Harding, who earlier this year left his post at Kroenke to found brand and marketing strategy company Tewdilly. “It doesn’t mean what are we producing on social, but how can every aspect of our marketing become something that our customers might share on social, and live in that way.”

With social sitting in such a centric role, the voice and brand of the business have become orbited in alignment with the organization’s social channels, and vice-versa. It’s not easy to develop a brand that’s consistent and authentic across a business, let alone a sports team. Multiply that challenge for Harding and his colleagues within Kroenke, overseeing numerous teams concurrently. He talked about the challenge of developing distinct voices for KSE’s diverse teams, and I loved the way he articulated extracting ideas from ‘micro-moments.’

“I think the best we did over time at nailing it in terms of voice, style, and tone was when our content team was closely connected to the front office and to team ops and to the players, and was at the training facility and at the practices and on the road and really got to know what the vibe was like and what the culture was like and what words were being used,” he said, “and being able to extract some of those micro-moments and the feelings and use that as a foundation for how we communicated publicly on these channels.”

There’s rhyme and reason to it all. It can be tempting to conform to the mean, to adopt a voice and brand strategy that appears to win on social media, sometimes at the expense of what actually resonates with and represents your fans. To get the most out of social media requires a two-way street. It’s part art, part science, part trial-and-error, and part thoughtful understanding of your fan base, customer base, and/or desired audience.

Harding had a front-row seat, and indeed active role, in managing the sometimes subtle and sometimes salient differences between fans across the KSE family. A lot of Nuggets fans and Avalanche fans, for example, share a connection to the state of Colorado, but to generalize across a cohort across any singular trait falls short. Harding and his team came to study the similarities and differences, and even found strategic opportunities of intersection to collaborate.

“The organizations are different, they just are, so embracing that is important,” said Harding. “I think it would be a mistake to treat all Denver fans or all Colorado fans in the same way and market to them in the same way, but there is opportunity for some crossover organically; some of that just happens organically. So I think the fine line is doing the things that make sense and finding crossover opportunities that unfold for you without forcing it.”

As my conversation with Harding progressed, it became clear how many of the principles and insights gleaned from all the years in sports translated to everyday brands. Even as the seasons changed (and the team performances) and as platforms evolved (and multiplied), the foundations Harding had learned became more solidified.

It’s not easy to go from leading digital and social for major pro sports teams to working with ‘normal’ brands and businesses, whether within the sports industry or not. It’s easy to wonder if the strategies and tactics honed over years of working on properties where the majority of customers are fanatics (fans!) and the brand is proudly worn on apparel, showed off on posters, and often (insistently) passed on to one’s kids. Harding reflected on his years with Kroenke and what he’s taken away as he works with clients at Tewdilly today.

“What I’ve learned is that the mechanisms can change, but the connection to customers is what’s most important, and then being true to your brand,” he said.

Harding continued, emphasizing how honest we must be with ourselves. It’s a rite of passage for a social media marketer to post something that they either don’t like or don-t understand — but their fans do.

“One thing I think is underrated or maybe not talked about as enough is just listening as a sales tactic,” he said. “Like, I hate — some of these words I actually have a reaction to, but it’s actually just listening to what your customers are saying and then genuinely trying to do what you can to give them what they’re asking for. It sounds really simple, but to me this means tapping into what is holding so many of us back at work, and maybe in other ways, but that’s the noise that’s in our heads.

“The fear, the insecurity, the comparison — and instead just truly listening to what we know to be true.”

Social media has become the gravitational center of how businesses connect, communicate, and grow—a lens through which every aspect of marketing, branding, and customer experience is refracted. It holds the answers to what customers want, how they behave, and what truly resonates. But those insights are only actionable when we approach them with curiosity and humility, allowing our own notions and assumptions to be challenged. The answers are all there—waiting to guide us, if we’re ready to listen.

LISTEN TO MY FULL INTERVIEW WITH JARED HARDING

READ THE SNIPPETS

Check out Jared’s business Tewdilly

Social Media, Social Media ROI, Sports Media

Creating True Fans and Community: Lessons from World Wide Wob

The early winners in social media flourished because they knew, observed, or did something that others didn’t. Sure, there’s an element of luck and timing, execution and sweat, but the innovators didn’t just optimize the status quo — they blazed a new one.

‘Winning’ is more ephemeral than ever, though. A moment in the spotlight, the fleeting flame of virality, is often just that. Even amassing impressive follower counts offers no guarantees in today’s algorithmic feeds when you’re only as good as your next piece of content. So only a small slice of those social media influencers, creators, or talent (whichever moniker you prefer) manage to transcend the inevitable changes in technology and platforms and the deluge of new creators entering the fray.

Rob Perez is an illustration of so many of these concepts in action. The NBA content unicorn better known as World Wide Wob (with Twitter his original and biggest social presence @WorldWideWob) didn’t set out with a plan to become one of the leaders of NBA Twitter, and it was actually his lack of background in traditional media that gave him a different lens and maybe a leg up as he earned audience, engagement, and fans.

It hasn’t even been two decades for the social media and sports paradigm that reinvented the fan experience. Pick your preferred landmark, but there’s little disagreement that the game changed when native video came to Twitter (early on in the form of Vine clips). Nothing was the same after that. Broadcast highlights became (and still are) ubiquitous in fans’ feeds, but what those old-school media companies didn’t get was that the future would not be about transmitting the broadcast experience to social (and, soon, mobile), but reinventing what highlights and coverage could be to fit the new fan experience.

Wob joked about his hackneyed method of recording his TV with his phone to produce ‘highlights’ (which he will often still do today) and how that allowed him to be an early mover on Vine and Twitter for NBA clips. He saw this new technology upending the way fans could engage with sports, especially during live games. Recognizing patterns and new tech capabilities became a hallmark of Wob’s success. In a recent interview with me, he described that differentiator, specifically referencing the emerging ‘mobile view’ that allowed for richer, clearer storytelling.

“Every other account in the world never did that. It was always the broadcast view,” said Perez, who founded and sold a sports ticketing startup [‘Groupon for sports tickets’] called Crowd Seats before starting his path to a career in NBA media. “You would have to watch it ten times before you realize what was going on. I had this competitive advantage, which I never even mentioned publicly or shared, because I’m like, ‘I can see there’s no engagement there because no one knows what are you talking about [in the clip].’

“…I was never going to compete with the already established networks and minds that had built their reputations with NBA audiences. I needed to find a different way in. And by doing a social media strategy of highlights, which, again, is so simple now in the way that I did it, is certainly what differentiated me from the crowd.”

Wob would continue to find ways to differentiate himself, notably by again embracing new technology when live video became part of the social media ecosystem, led by Periscope (acquired by Twitter) and Meerkat (acquired by Meta). While most legacy media geared up to discuss the night’s games the next day on their morning shows, Wob knew fans were eager to engage in the moment, it was all part of Perez’s dedication to being first and recognizing opportunities before others did, or dared to.

“I was just building this community of people that found the only place that you can get postgame stuff for years was on my Periscope,” he said. “SportsCenter sometimes wasn’t even live and they were just showing reruns and highlights. There was no postgame NBA show. And for years, I thrived off being the one guy that you could go to for that type of content.

“Now it’s completely saturated in 2024…identifying these different technologies — being the first to market will afford you opportunities which you didn’t even think were possible.”

His live video and audio remains a key part of his platform today, currently streaming on Sirius XM’s NBA channel. His reliable, engaging presence helped him build a huge following as more fans discovered him and his feed.

But Wob was cognizant and strategic, understanding there was a difference between a consumer, a follower, and a fan. When a tweet goes viral, still today, new potential fans discover you. Wob recognized there was a funnel to this and the key to developing actual fans, not fly-by consumers, was conveying what made him different from all the other sources of NBA highlights fans would encounter.

“I would say one out of ten of people that either retweeted, liked and/or followed the account stuck around,” said Perez, whose approach to converting fans is representative of the successful entrepreneur he is. “If I could have that 10% retention percentage and convert another 50% of those 10% into superfans, that’s an insane number that I would still kill for to this day. If you’re getting five out of 100 people to be superfans, that’s ludicrous, right?…

“So for many years, the strategy was always to give them an easy way to try and learn more and then be prepared for when that person did come in the store that you want to be ready to sell them. So I was always prepared. I was writing articles, I was cutting videos, producing monologues every single day — and anyone who came to the timeline at any given point, I would always make sure that there was something creative and/or proprietary to my own brand than just like, ‘here was the dunk of the night’ Otherwise you would just be a highlight channel…

“As long as there’s one out of ten that are able to give a much more detailed answer about all these various programs that I’ve worked with networks on and stuff like that — that’s all I ask for.”

As Wob built up his audience, he faced the challenge of serving his superfans, the ride-or-die who had been with him for a long time and got to know the inside jokes and tropes — part of a community — while also welcoming new fans and followers in the fold. It’s a unique problem to have—one of those ‘good problems’—that someone could remain relevant for so long while still attracting new followers.. It’s something Wob has taken to heart over the years and has come to recognize is important for any creator to consider — understanding their past-present-future audience, their own intentional brand, and, most importantly, never getting complacent, thinking your old schtick will remain as relevant and engaging as the years pass by. (Just think how different the fan social media experience was just a few years ago, let alone a decade ago).

“It’s always a struggle for me to continue to re-educate followers and people that are just joining social media for the first time in a younger audience that have no clue nor care about your entire history and what you’ve done in ten years,” Perez explained. “They just started following you yesterday, and to get those people through the door and retain them is a massive undertaking of effort…

“But you have to create content which appeals to your long-term base as well as someone who has no clue who you are, which is a massive [challenge] — it flies under the radar for content creators who think they’re just always going to keep doing the same things because [their] fan base has been there since day one. No, you’re going to get new people all the time.”

It’s critical nowadays to build fan bases, not followers; to create community, not consumers. Wob didn’t set out to master Twitter, his approach to content and engagement allowed him to develop fans beyond followers. Fans didn’t want to just to see the highlight clips — those are largely commoditized now — they wanted to see his clips and his takes.

Wob knows how fortunate (but strategically intentional) he is to have a true community. There are countless accounts now boasting millions of followers. But in 2024, particularly for an individual finding jobs with media companies that want his fans along with his talent, how important is the follower count?

“Inflation has hit subscriber counts harder than it has the US dollar,” said Perez, who today has over 1.1 million Twitter followers. “So what I mean by that is a million followers on Twitter in 2015 was worth 3 to 5 times as much as it is now. And the inflation isn’t just Twitter specific, it’s because TikTok became a thing, because YouTube now has eaten up so much market share that having a million followers on one platform is great, but what are you doing in the event that one of these social media networks folds? What are you doing if one of these other places takes off?

“Are these followers following you because you cook the books on an algorithm or are they following you because you have built a community?…”

It’s easier than ever to go viral now. The number of different accounts that were able to reach over a million views in a single post is likely higher in 2024 than in any preceding year. The number of accounts with over a million followers is likewise higher than ever, to Wob’s previous point about follower count inflation. That’s partly why you see creators seeking (and being served) ways to identify their true fans, to ‘own’ them beyond the whims of platforms for algorithm-driven feeds that offer no guarantees day-to-day, whether by creating newsletters with email lists or forms of membership and even paid communities.

And it’s because Wob does have a sizable community that he has been able to thrive over the years, and continues to have media companies vying for his services. Think of all the talent let go by legacy media companies over the past few years, whether ESPN or Sports Illustrated or countless others — only a select few remained nearly as relevant when the corporate identifier left their @ handles. But Wob is on the other side of the spectrum, because so many of his followers are fans and will follow him wherever he goes.

“I think that’s why I certainly get a lot of opportunity in the event there’s a bigger account out there and or a network potentially that would drive more eyeballs,” he explained. “They know, through my experience and all of the content that I’ve created over these decades, that this guy, no matter where he goes, that audience will come with him.

“There’s talent that relies on the network, otherwise they’re on the street…”

Wob is representative of the power shift happening in media. The corporations and brands need the talent more than vice-versa. It’s an uncomfortable situation for executives, many of whom came up assured in the belief that talent grew up dreaming of working for their companies and that individuals were lucky to ride the wake of the platform a brand could give them. Wob has experienced the reversal of that paradigm, and it’s not always comfortable for the power brokers of old.

“My mobility ability has certainly put me in the crosshairs of certain executives in the past that I’ve worked with,” said Perez, whose long list of stops one can see on his LinkedIn page illuminates his mobility. “But I just don’t know what to do other than just be respectful and do my job, so that’s what I’ve always done. And as a result, I’m sure those people don’t have the most sterling things to say about me, but they will say he was here the whole time and he worked and he just left. And I’m absolutely willing to live with that if I know the next opportunity is going to compensate me for that type of relationship fallout…

“I’ve lived it, I’ve breathed it. It has its benefits, but you also better be damn good too…”

Rob Perez stands as a testament to the power of adaptability, authenticity, and community. His journey exemplifies how creators who embrace change, innovate with intention, and build genuine connections can thrive beyond the fleeting flash of viral fame. As followers evolve into fans, they forge bonds that transcend algorithms and platforms. In this new era, it’s not just about reaching millions; it’s about resonating with them. And in that, World Wide Wob and others like him are redefining what it truly means to win in social media.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH ROB PEREZ AKA WORLD WIDE WOB

READ THE SNIPPETS

General Sports Business, Social Media

Skating the Line Between Core and Casual: The Fan Engagement Challenge in Hockey

Which sport’s fans are the most avid?

Not which has the most fans, but the major sport whose average fan is highest on the avidity scale?

It’s an interesting thought experiment because while everybody knows the NFL Rules the roost in the US, do they have the highest concentration of fervent fans? To have a high density of diehards is not necessarily desirable. Businesses, brands, creators — they all love their biggest, most passionate fans, but the common trend is to chase the casuals.

Sean McIndoe has a lot of avid fans. The longtime hockey writer who’s also known as Down Goes Brown learned early on in his career that it was better to be the best in a niche than to try and compete for the generic masses. McIndoe took a new take to hockey content, infusing comedy and (eventually) esoteric minutiae and wit that a subset of fans fell in love with. He’s been number one at what he does ever since.

“If there was a strategy that I mapped out I think at some point I kind of realized — and maybe this would be the advice to people starting out — is first of all, early on when there’s nobody reading you, try a whole bunch of stuff,” said McIndoe, who was working a full-time 9-to-5 when he started blogging about hockey on the side. “Go nuts. Because if it stinks who cares? Five people are going to see it. You’ll know kind of what works for you and what doesn’t or at least you’ll form an idea, and then from there find that niche, find that voice. Try to be number one at something.”

He continued: “It’s better to be number one at something very small than to be number 100 in the ‘I’m (national hockey writer) Greg Wyshynksi’s 100th backup; like if a hundred things happened to all the people ahead of me I’m the new Wysh’ — and you know Greg’s a friend of mine — he’s awesome, but he’s awesome because he can do everything and he can do it fantastic and he’s built this decades-long career doing it.

“There’s no market out there for the 100th-best Wysh, but there might be a market out there for the first or second or third best in some sort of niche.”

McIndoe’s work appeared in several major publications and he spent time at Grantland (RIP) before making his way to The Athletic, where he works today. He recognizes the advantageous equation at play for him at The Athletic. While wholly ad-supported sites are beholden to driving site traffic to every last fan, a subscription site like The Athletic thrives on fans who love journalism and/or individual writers so much that they’ll pay for the right to read.

DGB (an abbreviation for Down Goes Brown) wants his work to be enjoyable for everybody who ends up on his stories, but he also recognizes there’s something special about including some more obscure stuff within his stories, with a wink and a nod that only the geekiest and most ardent will understand.

“As a subscription-based business, [The Athletic] is not just about page views. Every time we write something someone doesn’t like [readers] come in like ‘Oh, it’s clickbait.’. It’s like ‘Dude, we’re a subscription model. What — do you think it helps me to get 100,000 people to click on something that they hate. Like walk me through how you think that benefits me or the site,” said McIndoe. “So it’s been nice to do that in a way that you that I’m not constantly churning out [content], I’m not sitting there going I gotta do ten posts a day and I gotta rank first in Google and I gotta jam keywords into the headline and all of that stuff…

“You’re right, you can’t go completely niche all the time,” McIndoe continued while noting he tries to keep a balance. “If it’s too niche, at some point, there just isn’t enough even if that’s not what you’re being directly measured by. But at the same time that niche audience are going to be the ones who love you the best…”

McIndoe’s niche audience loves him. (I read and listen to just about everything DGB produces) His fans likely have a high average avidity rate. The same could be said about fans of the National Hockey League. You won’t find too many fly-by NHL fans. It’s perhaps a blessing and a curse. The ceiling when it comes to ratings and self-identifying fans for the NHL will never have as many fans as the NFL, that’s a given.

As McIndoe sees it, in some ways the league leans into that too much, focusing on growing revenue per capita instead of seeking more capitas (fans).

I think the NHL — I’ve been banging this drum for a long time — they haven’t done enough to grow the audience they haven’t done enough to make the product appeal to as many people as they can.

“I think what [NHL Commissioner] Gary Bettman has done well is he is figuring out how to squeeze more and more money out of the audience they do have, and to maximize how much they can get from that,” he said. “That can be a business model. A lot of sports or entertainment places out there are realizing that Hey, I can’t grow the audience but what I can do is figure out who my real core audience is and then just grabbing by the ankles and hold them upside down and shake them, and that’s sort of what the Bettman model has been.”

The NHL revenues, like every major pro sports league, continue to go increase — those avid fans are paying off. But the ceiling for the NHL is lower without the finding avenues to bring in new or casual fans. A lot of emerging sports are also on a constant quest for new and casual fans to notice them and sample their product with an open mind, in hopes they’ll seek to learn and follow more (For example, sports like lacrosse, cricket, rugby, and volleyball, among many others).

The optimal set of conditions is existing fans welcoming newbies with open arms, serving as their sherpa and helping them learn the ropes. As McIndoe has seen all too often in his career, however, hockey fans are quick to call out novices and, well, shunning or shaming them. Is the ‘I liked this band when they were playing small clubs’ audience alienating new fans?

“The gatekeepers can go get bent,” said an exasperated McIndoe. “I hate that stuff. I hate that stuff where it’s ‘Can you name five players?’ Shut up, man. Hockey fans are ridiculous for that because the two things the hockey fans love doing most are complaining that there aren’t enough hockey fans. ‘How come everybody doesn’t see this sport the way I do?’ And then the second anybody new shows up just absolutely kicking them in the ass and turning them around and sending them home because they don’t know or how dare you ask a question. How dare you get a player’s name wrong?”

McIndoe recounted a time when his former boss at Grantland Bill Simmons, a powerhouse in the sports industry for years and still today, wrote about hockey but messed up a player’s name. The fans were relentless, possibly chilling Simmons from delving more into NHL content.

McIndoe did note that such overly protective ownership is not necessarily just a hockey thing; social media and the internet foments such tribalism.

“That’s not a hockey fan thing or even a sports fan thing, that’s an internet thing,” he said. “I know there are other industries that have much bigger problems with the gatekeeping stuff, but my message to hockey fans is Man, pick a lane. If you want hockey to be a little niche small thing that only you’re cool enough to know about, okay. You want to be the cool indie band, that’s fine.

“But then don’t complain and at the same time you’re going to complain not enough people are hockey fans like we are. We’re all like ‘We’ve got the cool indie band; we’re like Hey, this isn’t this the biggest band in the world and then they put out an album that goes to number one and we go ‘Oh, man, they’ve changed.’ No, they haven’t it’s exactly the same.”

The NHL may be the answer to which league’s fans have the highest avidity rate. That concentrated cohort has helped McIndoe and others like him succeed, he concedes, but it’s all those diehard fans that may be stopping the NHL from moving more mainstream.

We want to move fans up the passion spectrum; more superfans of your team, league, or sport is a great outcome. But there’s a balance (just like with McIndoe in his articles) — serve the superfans, for sure, but also develop the easy avenues and entrypoints for fly-by and casual fans. You want a big cohort of diehards who consume every nook and cranny of the sport, but you also want a sizable segment that knows next to nothing.

This was such a good interview with Sean McIndoe and I wanted to also include his insightful take on the increased presence of tribalism among media outlets. Such polarizing cliquishness is obvious in the world of politics, but that same us vs. them mentality is starting to penetrate sports, too, as this statement from McIndoe implies.

“You have this relatively new thing where people used to almost identify themselves by what team they cheered for, that’s as old as sports. But now it’s like a lot of people identify themselves based on what media they consume, which is deeply weird to me. Like I’m a [Spittin’ Chiclets] guy. I’m like Alright. Cool. You know, I get all my stuff from Outkick. Awesome, never talk to me, please, I don’t know, I guess. But you know some of that is the more personal style of writing and certainly podcasts it feels like a much more social thing and you start to identify with people. And it’s all good; like it’s more opportunities…I really mean that when I said Hey, if you like Outkick, please never talk to me. I feel that way. But also I’m not saying shut the site down. I’m not saying you don’t ever get to like the stuff that you like. Go like the stuff that you like, don’t ever talk to me about it because it’s stupid, but go ahead and like your stupid stuff. You’re allowed to. I like some stupid stuff too. Let’s get the audience out there.

“I don’t love the thing where it kind of turns into If you like my site that means you have to hate these guys or if you listen to my podcast we’re enemies with these guys — like, what are we doing? But at the same time some marketing guy would be like, No, That’s how you build loyalty. That’s how you do this and that. I guess that makes sense. It’s not really my angle on things.”

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH SEAN MCINDOE AKA DOWN GOES BROWN

READ THE SNIPPETS

READ SEAN’S WORK AT THE ATHLETIC

Social Media, Sports Media

Value Over Replacement: What It Takes to Survive and Thrive in Today’s Sports Media Industry

Journalists are as replaceable as ever. But good journalists are as valuable as ever.

There’s no need to recite the countless headlines of publications shutting down or writers getting laid off to convey the challenges facing the media industry in sports and beyond. But that just augments the value of individuals who bring something unique to the table and command an audience.

Dan Wetzel knows what it’s like to face an uphill battle, to earn attention. The renowned sports reporter and columnist was part of the early days of Yahoo Sports (where he continues to work today), back when a lot of fans were still reading their sports stories in print or on whichever website could win the SEO or home page game. (Yahoo.com was one of those ubiquitous home pages, of course). Today it’s a different sea of competition, but more fierce, with innumerable options, personalities, and platforms where fans can find and consume sports stories. Throughout the eras, a consistent lesson continues to stick with Wetzel — you can’t blend in. There has to be a reason for fans to find you, follow you, and come back to you.

“My favorite one of the [advanced baseball stats] is VORP: value over replacement player,” he explained in a recent interview with me. “If you’re not delivering value over a replacement player, doing what the other people aren’t, then you’re failing. Because you can get the same stuff everywhere. So what are you contributing that’s above that?”

Fans have felt connections to their favorite writers for years, but, for prior generations, much of that was constrained. Way back, what fans read and watched about sports was limited to their local newspapers and newscasts, with a special treat perhaps arriving in the mail in the form of a Sports Illustrated magazine, for example. Now, it’s a battle. As Wetzel noted that’s where ‘VORP’ comes in for individuals, but professional journalists, and their publications, aren’t just trying to win the internet. Sure, a single story or tweet going viral is great and all, but if you’re looking to have fans come back for days, weeks, and years to come, that requires something more authentic, repeatable, and rooted in a relationship.

“Throughout time there’s constantly these mini trends where everyone will get all excited about this or that, and you get a lot of people in media going, ‘This is the next big thing.’ It doesn’t last, and then that whole thing falls apart,” said Wetzel. “So you always have to be true to yourself.

“Whether it’s people reading the column or hearing you on talk radio shows or listening to your podcast or getting to know you some through social media, the more of a relationship you have with them, I think your trust level is better. I think people people have an understanding and that’s not just with each individual, but an entire site. What’s the ethos of the site?”

Wetzel was referencing the way Yahoo Sports built itself up and sustained the brand over time. The ‘ethos’ of the site plays a big part in why sports fans (myself included) choose to click, listen, and watch what Wetzel and his colleagues put out. ‘You can get the same stuff,’ everywhere, remember, as Wetzel said a few paragraphs ago. So whether you’re a publication, a creator, a reporter, or even a sports team or league — do you and your content have a ‘brand’ that’s unique? If you asked ChatGPT to describe what differentiates you from other places sports fans can go, would it have a legitimate response?

I’m restating this key theme of this story because Wetzel and Yahoo Sports do have a unique brand, VORP and all. They’re informed but often irreverent, they’re credible and respectful of the serious stories, they deliver information, insight, and opinion in a relatable and digestible manner. Read or watch Wetzel and this ethos comes out. He has covered difficult stories throughout his career (Larry Nassar, Jerry Sandusky, Aaron Hernandez, for example), and also spends much of his time in the melodramatic but big-money world of college sports. Wetzel discussed this complex web of content, one in which he understands what matters and why.

“I don’t take the small stuff seriously, I take the big stuff seriously,” he said. “At the end of the day, the games are about the entertainment. I just treat it like a business. I always felt more like a business reporter than a sports reporter. The games are the easiest thing to cover and the least important. You know, they have a huge scoreboard that tells you what the final score is. It’s all the other stories where you don’t have a final score.

“And certainly in college athletics, the controversies, the scandals, the personalities are a bigger part of it than just the games. Because if you want to watch really good football, you want to watch the best football, you don’t watch college football. The best actual football being played is in the NFL. You want to watch the best basketball, you watch the NBA. The players are better, the coaching is better, the rules are better. It just is.

“You’re watching because of a passion and all the other mayhem and the environments and all the other stuff, as well as good basketball or good football.”

The passion in college sports is palpable and drives countless narratives. How many fans are ready to fire the coach after a week 1 stinker? How many coaches have been caught lying through their teeth to steer a story or evade an angle of questioning? As coaches have become more like CEOs and politicians, knowing how important it is to appease fans (especially the wealthiest ones) and recruits (including potential transfers), Wetzel recognizes he has to help fans understand the actual information. And to use his efforts to give fans what they’re not getting elsewhere along with his informed view of where the truth really lies amidst all the noise. That’s part of his value over replacement.

“On a complicated issue, like NIL [for example], it’s just trying to be reasonable, understanding it, and carving out like, ‘Okay, this is what I think,'” he explained, about covering the endless storylines around name-image-likeness in college sports. “Not just repeating. The easiest thing to do with NIL, and probably the most profitable would be to to cry that the sky is falling. That’s what everyone wanted…But coaches are the worst sources because they know almost nothing other than what they’re coaching…I mean these coaches are telling you that all the laws of economics no longer exist in this one entity because their feelings are hurt. So you try to explain it as best you can on something like that.

“If it’s a trial, you’re trying to convey information and to describe the situation and severity. If it’s a game you’re trying to show people things they can’t see on television.”

Fans don’t know what they don’t know. But any sports fan who spends a minute on social media (or message boards) knows there is no shortage of often anonymous users who claim to have information other fans don’t. While some of the ‘scoops’ individuals with often humorous usernames and pseudonyms sometimes turn out to be true, their hit rate tends to be somewhere near the odds of a jackpot lottery win. Is it the job of a journalist in 2024 to sift through all the slop and assess and inform their audience on what’s credible and what’s not? That’s a Sisyphean task and why it’s so important for someone like Wetzel to have a relationship with fans who know they can trust what he puts out.

“It’s not my job to police the information out there,” said Wetzel, whose exasperation with all the misinformation on social media can’t help but come out a bit. “There are credible news organizations that put false stuff out there. There’s the teams or the coaches, they put out false stuff [out] themselves on purpose. So all you can do is try to sort through it. But you can’t really spend much time.

“I mean, people will say, Oh, you’re wrong because I saw this. But I think, again, it goes to the long-term relationship. If people trust that you’re reasonable, and you don’t overreact to stuff, then maybe they have more of an understanding. That’s all you can go with.”

Wetzel continued: “Clearly social media allows anybody a voice and it can go big really quick. That guy could have been the guy at the end of the bar, guy calling in to talk radio. Now it’s out there and they can make things so you can disinformation things really easily. It’s all how it’s presented and it can be quite effective and people are good at it. What am I supposed to do about it? I mean, I don’t care.

“If an organization is listening to what’s getting said on social media, they’re failing, because what seems like a lot on social media is not. It can be one guy with 200 accounts. 20 people yelling at you can seem like it’s 20,000, whereas most fans are reasonable and still support the team and all that or don’t even know. But that’s not my job.”

There are a lot of voices, there’s a lot of noise. But if fans have a reason to seek you amidst the noise, to listen for your voice — you might just have a chance to survive in this new era (the new normal). As our conversation came to a close, Wetzel reflected on what it takes to make it for a journalist today, where the VORP lies.

“There have been so many people that come and go because they don’t really provide value. They’re replaceable. But if you can uncover information, get people to talk to you, if you know how to be a reporter, there’s probably a future for you. It’s a tough business, though…

“At some point it comes down to, why are you listening? And unless you’re incredibly gifted and charismatic it’s really hard to do without being a reporter or already previously famous because it’s just such a competitive industry.”

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH DAN WETZEL

READ THE SNIPPETS