No Longer Credentialed

In this episode of "No Longer Credentialed," we dive deep into the transformative power of AI in the sports industry. We’ll discuss how AI is reshaping workflows, content creation, and communication strategies for sports professionals. From practical tips on using ChatGPT for copywriting and PR to the importance of maintaining a human touch, the conversation is packed with real-world examples and candid stories from decades in the field. 

Barca is Up To His Ears with certain content traditions that are overdue for retirement. 

Whether you’re a comms pro, coach, or just curious about the future of work. We’ve got it all.

We’re also sponsored by, shoot we forgot because we generated it in AI. Either way, we hope that the check is in the mail.

Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction: Why AI matters in sports

1:17 – The real story behind sports comms careers

3:17 – Main segment: Practical AI tools for workflow and efficiency

5:41 – Copywriting, brand voice, and the role of AI

14:21 – PR, media relations, and AI’s impact

45:00 – Rethinking social media: this idea needs to head to retirement home

61:33 – Final thoughts and what’s next

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

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In this episode of 'No Longer Credentialed,' we interview Andy McNamara, a legendary collegiate athletics communicator who spent nearly 13 years at the University of Oregon (3:19). We cover Andy’s significant contributions, including spearheading two Heisman Trophy campaigns and leading the Ducks football communications effort in two national championship runs. The conversation also delves into Andy's transformative experience after leaving the sports industry in 2017, his perspective on the demise of the Pac-12, and the unusual but liberating transition to a different pace of life. Anecdotes feature special moments like traveling with Heisman finalists and behind-the-scenes experiences at high-profile events, including a memorable encounter with Bob Seger and Emma Stone at the Ed Sullivan Theater on The Late Show With David Letterman. We wrap up by discussing the impact of conference realignments on collegiate sports and the importance of maintaining a work-life balance in the sports industry. 

Are we really this stupid? Boggs is 'Up to His Ears' about the impracticalities and logistical challenges of the current college sports conference alignments, proposing a swap of three schools each between the Big 12 and the ACC for a more sensible setup (39:46). 

Sponsors for this week’s episode are The Third Lane Booster Club and Get Off Your Ass and Refill the Damn Printer Paper (36:16). Our Venmo is NLCPod. 

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

X: https://x.com/nlcpod

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nlcpod

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This week on the podcast. We’ve made it to episode 20 and we kick off the podcast with a new segment called "Dear Formerly Credentialed" where we read listener submissions from the sports industry community (3:00). 

We shout out Middle Tennessee State for their common-sense approach to football uniforms and have a get-off-of-my-lawn-old-man conversation about the absurdity of ruining brands, sometimes well-established brands, all in the name of recruiting and frivolous spending (10:53). 

We then go on-and-on about two of our favorite brands, Chick-fil-A (22:35) and Buc-ee’s (38:31), and Barca is Up To His Ears about whether current athletic directors are equipped to handle today’s world of college athletics (29:16).

And just when you think you’ve heard it all, we hear about Boggs’ cat’s very doglike skillset (47:22).

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

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LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nlcpod

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This week on the podcast. We have some fun and go back in time to advise our younger selves about some career paths we’d encourage them to take (2:37).

Some advice may be absurd. Some may be futuristic. Either way, sit back and hop in the time machine with us as we embark on the inaugural “If We knew Then What We Know Now Sports Career Redraft”.

Today’s episode is sponsored by The Quiet Quits Retirement Home and the  Sweatshop TI-81 calculator (22:51). We need the check, ASAP!

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

X: https://x.com/nlcpod

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nlcpod

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Brayden Figueroa is the definition of betting on yourself.

For five years, he worked as a video producer for the LA Lakers. Then one day, he woke up, quit his job with one of the biggest sports franchises in the world, and decided to chase his dream of starting his own business.

As a Barca protege at the University of Oregon, Brayden didn’t have the best video equipment, but he still made some dope shit. And more importantly—he gave a shit. He’s always had that “it” factor. He was a leader among his peers, always learning, collaborating and pushing to get better.

Fast forward to today—he’s the host of The 505 Podcast, a hub spotlighting some of the best creators and marketing minds in the world, while helping others learn and grow. Recent guests include industry titans like Gary Vee and Seth Godin.

The 505 Podcast is closing in on 200 episodes, with more than 20,000 YouTube subs, 80,000 followers on IG, and 1.2 million likes on TikTok. He’s also the co-founder of Blue Stripe Studios, a full-service creative production company making stories built for mobile.

What separates B Figgy from the rest is his generous advice and stories of the mistakes that he has made on his business journey. That this whole thing is more than just being creative with a camera.

In this episode, you’ll find out that the time is ripe for creatives to reshape and reinvent how we think about communicating in the digital space. He’ll talk about the beginning of his business journey (6:11), how and why he quit the Lakers (8:19), how being on-the-go early in his career set him up for success with his own company (15:17), how he handled hitting his ceiling in a job (17:42), how sports creatives and workers can toot their own horn more (19:19), did he ever think about what he was worth as a freelancer when he was working for someone else (24:18), how he develops pricing plans for projects (29:29), how he makes money and adds value for clients (35:22), what he thinks about AI in the creative space (40:09), why he thinks sports teams are stuck in their same-old ways when it comes to digital media (45:07), two pieces of advice for people who want to go out on their own (47:35), and how he arranged and secured a podcast with industry leader Gary Vee (50:18). 

You can connect with Brayden on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bfiggy/ and on TikTok at https://www.tiktok.com/bfiggy/.

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

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Another week, another damning article about working in sports, this time by AthleticDirectorU.com titled D1 Administrative Burnout, Exhaustion & Disengagement, Part 2: Qualitative Analysis, where many athletic department staffers, at all levels, express their dismay about working in the business. Many of the complaints are the same ones you have heard on our show. 

So, we decided to bring in an industry expert, Matt Brown, the author of the ExtraPoints newsletter and a longtime reporter on off-the-field and business happenings in college sports, to talk to us about what he’s hearing about the crisis from his sources and if changes are in the works to stem the tide of the brain drain and exhaustion felt by the entire industry (2:41).

Barca and I then rattle off some free advice for athletic directors everywhere, with many of the ideas costing very little or nothing at all (39:22). We know that being an athletic director is hard, so we’re here to help. Take notes AD’s and our DM’s are open if you need us to come in and keep your people from leaving.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Total ReKool and We’ve Got Colors (36:55). Check is in the mail, right?

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

X: https://x.com/nlcpod

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nlcpod

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A prank that lived for over 10 years? Is that possible?

It is indeed possible, and we have the mastermind behind a prank that had Boggs fooled for over a decade. Former colleague Ryan Schulz joins us this week to relive the moment and recounts how he pulled off the joke of the century (2:03), one that would probably still be going on if everyone still worked in the same office.

We’ll also take a look back and some other infamous pranks and stories from around the office (42:09), and Schulz lets us in on an improbable story from a trip to the NCAA Tournament (52:31)

This week’s episode is sponsored by Gone, But Not Forgotten, Funeral Home and Drinks of Delusion (39.58). We’re still waiting for payment - maybe they put our direct deposit account number wrong?

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

X: https://x.com/nlcpod

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nlcpod

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We are honored and thrilled this week to share our conversation with Boggs’ graduate school buddy, Scott Fitzgerald, who recently started Purscial, a coach and support system for coaches, executives, and administrators who serve others in environments where performance matters. It’s like a caddy for coaches - someone in their corner to lighten the load and help them perform at their best.

We dig into a multitude of topics that apply to all people working in sports, and frankly, all humans, and how we face adversity, discover more about ourselves, and how we can find joy in the work that we do and the people we can become.

We’ll ask how he got the idea to start his business (3:19), how the conversations with coaches get started (8:32), what are the main things he has his clients focus on (11:03), the idea of joy and can coaches truly find it (15:21), burnout with coaches in general (18:31), how long does the process take for change to take place (21:53), strategies for results-oriented coaches (24:00), how many of his clients are trapped in fear (26:43), how passion influences decisions and self-exploration and how to harness it (28:36).

After an ad break from our loyal sponsors Lloyd Christmas IOU’s and The Dead Media Society (33:45), we continue our conversation and ask Fitzy about the glamorization - or lack thereof - of being a coach (36:18), people taking advantage of our passion (39:32), who checks on the wellness of our coaches (42:32), how cultivating coaches saves departments and organizations money (45:15), being honest is the only way to make progress and how receptive coaches are to it (53:35), the fear of perfection and how it hinders to be your best (58:06), how he wants coaches to feel after meeting with him (1:00:27), and two things that help relationships (1:04:44).

You can find Scott at https://purscial.net/ and can email him at [email protected].

We also wanted to list the books that Fitzy mentions on the podcast. 

The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

Tao Te Ching: A New English Version by Lao Tzu

The Inward Trilogy by yung pueblo

The Tough Stuff: Seven Hard Truths About Being a Head Coach by Cody Royle

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

X: https://x.com/nlcpod

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nlcpod

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TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@nlcpod

A lot to get to this week on the podcast. Maybe next time an outlet tries to lift ideas from us, we’ll get cited. 

After The Athletic decided to take our idea about ownership in college sports (2:49), we’ll examine their top-10 list of college football valuations - and where we think they made a big mistake. Either way, college presidents are seeing dollar signs. When will they be crazy enough to act on this idea?

After seeing this intriguing article from Nielsen on media consumption, our minds shifted to sports television rights (17:47) and why we think ESPN is going to have to pay the piper for college football. We unpack behind-the-scenes details of the origins of the SEC Network and why those early philosophies may doom the Worldwide Leader moving forward.

And finally, when we thought we’d seen it all in college sports, we found an athletic director who outdid everyone for stupidity (43:44). Boggs is Up To His Ears and lets him know about it.

While awaiting for their check to come in the mail, we decided to let Nostalgia Gummies and 25-Hour Energy go ahead and run their ads (41:18). But, we promise this is the last time this is going to happen!

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

X: https://x.com/nlcpod

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nlcpod

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nlcpod

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We’re back and better than ever. 

In Episode 13, we talk about the World #1's stunning press conference that sent shockwaves through the golf world. We unpack his brutally honest revelations and share how his powerful message can transform your own life's journey, both at work and at home (4:59).

Barca is Up To His Ears about the lunacy of higher ed and how universities are slapping on "student experience fees" while drowning in House Settlement debt. We expose the smoke and mirrors behind higher ed's latest money grab - and why you should be outraged (18:22).

And, in our final segment, we read one of your stories from the frontlines of sports and our emotional and candid conversation is one you won’t hear anywhere else (33:36).

Of course, we can’t go on any further without thanking our sponsors, although we’re still for waiting for payment, the Gaslight Group and Buy-In Or Get-Out (31:45).

This episode was produced and written by Brandon Barca and Andy Boggs.

Find us on all of the socials at NLCPod.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NLCPod

X: https://x.com/nlcpod

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nlcpod

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nlcpod

TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@nlcpod