By ADC Partners
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The podcast currently has 61 episodes available.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably consider yourself to be something of a sports fan. But what degree of sports fan are you, really…? How badly do your favorite team’s losses really sting?
For example, does that 1 run loss on the 27th game of the baseball season hurt so much that it forces you to go on a two hour walk to decompress? Probably not.
But that’s what fandom is like for this episode’s guest, Borna Nazari, the President and Founder of Hog Media. When his beloved Padres hurt, he hurt with them.
The difference, though, is that Borna channeled that passion into a youtube show focused on the Padres. And people started paying attention. A LOT of attention. Sponsors followed. And pretty soon Borna was quitting his day job to concentrate on building his channel, and connecting with other sports content creators around the country.
Which brings us to today. As founder and president of Hog Media, Borna now manages a network of close to 200 creators and is playing a key role in reshaping what media is for teams and leagues. In our conversation, we talk about the founding of Hog Media, his insights into what makes compelling content, how brands can reap the benefit of working closely with sports content creators, and how authenticity isn’t just key, but is also fundamentally changing what it means to be in sports media.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
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Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
I’ve always loved the expression “Man plans, god laughs”. It’s actually an old Yiddish proverb that speaks to how hard it is to execute a plan when so many unforeseen variables can come into play. Vaunted 21st century philosopher Mike Tyson has a more contemporary version : “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
I suspect no one knows more about carefully laid plans going awry than this episode’s guest, Learfield Chief Strategy Officer, Ben Mathan.
After carefully plotting out a career in financial services, Mathan took on a role with college sports juggernaut Learfield. After carefully plotting out his role at the company, COVID exploded and emptied out stadiums, choking off Learfield’s main source of revenue.
You get the picture. Ben planned. God laughed.
But through all that change and tumult, Mathan kept his eyes fixed on what he knew: college sports would always be popular to millions of people, and that Learfield was in the perfect position to benefit from all that passion.
In our conversation, we talk about Mathan’s somewhat indirect path to working in college sports, what he believes are the key attributes for someone charged with developing corporate strategy, and how he keeps his focus in an industry where things seem to change hour by hour.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
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Here's where you can find us:
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
Sports business moves pretty quickly. People change jobs, get involved with cool stuff, launch new companies. All kinds of stuff. So it makes sense, every so often, to catch up with a previous guest.
This time, we’re catching up with Episode 19 guest, Jenn Todd of the Boston Celtics.
Click here for our original episode (published on Dec 2022.)
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
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I’ve got bad news for you. Turns out your TV is pretty dumb. Well, not the TV itself, really. But the broadcast that comes into it sure can be. In this age of personalized experiences and customization, a sports broadcast is more or less one size fits all. Here’s the game, there’s the couch, sit down, and watch.
It’s a situation that was just begging for someone to apply a little innovation and creativity. And that someone was Wim Sweldens, the co-founder and CMO of Kiswe.
Sweldens, you see, is the consummate innovator. The former Lucent technologist owns 28 US patents, which is 28 more than most people have, and saw early on how all the bandwidth being created could be filled with more customized viewing experiences. That led to the founding of Kiswe, the company helping sports teams and leagues take control of their streaming rights to offer direct-to-consumer experiences that they own, operate and (more importantly) monetize.
In our conversation, we talk about the a-ha moment that led to the founding of Kiswe, how K-Pop superstars BTS were instrumental to their growth, and how teams like the Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns are using Kiswe to provide private label streaming services direct to their fans.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
FOLLOW US
Here's where you can find us:
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
The other day I was looking at all the digital photos and video I’ve stored over the years, and was a little overwhelmed. I’ll bet you know what I’m talking about, right? Things stored in different places. Lack of categorization. Frankly, it’s a total mess.
Now, imagine what that’d be like if you were doing it for hundreds of thousands of people...
But that’s what sports teams are dealing with right now. Think about all the photos, videos, and other forms of content that are generated about leagues, teams, and players on a daily basis. It’s staggering, right?
That’s where Mark Keaney and Greenfly come in. Greenfly shows teams not only how to organize all that content, but also how they can use it effectively to connect with and engage their fans.
Using media effectively is nothing new to Mark, who has a long history in the industry. In our conversation, we talk about how the changing role of media in sports, what he’s seeing in terms of best practices for using user generated content, how established teams and leagues are actually looking to the upstarts for advice on using new media and content, , and much more.
I hope you’ll also take time to listen all the way through, because I promise you’ll also be inspired by Mark’s 7AM Project.
Just one other thing. Please note that there is one moment of foul language in this episode, but that’s to be expected when two guys who grew up near Boston get together. It’s just the way it works.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
FOLLOW US
Here's where you can find us:
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
The other day was movie night here at worldwide HQ, so I thought I’d check out “The Spoils”, Mike Nicoll’s monumental documentary about AAU basketball. I’d juat settled in when the film’s protagonist, Etop Udo-Ema, says the following about AAU hoops:
“It’s a street game. It’s really just one step ahead of the dope game.”
It’s kind of an astounding statement, right? Youth sports being compared to the drug trade? But that line that lands even harder when Mike shares that he used the infamous HBO show The Wire as an inspiration for structuring his movie.
So just what the hell is going on in AAU basketball?
“The Spoils” takes a hard look at the state of amateur basketball in the US, and what it reveals is pretty breathtaking. To make his movie, Mike spent 11 years essentially embedded with the Compton Magic, the preeminent AAU basketball team in the country.
And what it reveals is a system perfectly designed to, in Mike’s words, “anoint and monetize” the next superstars.
In our conversation about his movie, Mike and I talk about the fearsome impact the current state of AAU has had on the sport, how entrenched interests like sneaker companies want to avoid changing the system at all costs, how AAU and players evolved over the decade he was attached to the Compton Magic, and what the ultimate cost is to the young teenage boys who get enmeshed in a system that openly refers to them as "assets" and "commodities".
Please note that this episode contains explicit language.
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ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
So tell me: What’s your greatest fear? Spiders? Heights? The mushroom people monsters from that movie you watched on Channel 38’s Creature Double Feature when you stayed up way too late? Oh, right. That one’s mine….
For most people, speaking in public is their greatest fear. It’s something Rose Lanham, the founder for Players for Good, a quickly growing speaker’s bureau for athletes, knows all too well. Because even players who are accustomed to competing in front of tens of thousands of people can get sweaty palms at the idea of speaking before a bunch of Rotarians.
It’s one of the reasons Rose launched Players for Good. The players she works with have amazing stories to tell about overcoming obstacles, surviving injury and illness, and experiencing what it takes to compete and win at the highest levels. Through Players for Good, she helps athletes craft their stories into compelling narratives, and then finds opportunities for them to share those stories.
In our conversation, we talk about how working with folks like Tony Gwynn showed her how athletes can impact a community, the qualities that make for a great speech, and what event producers should consider when featuring an athlete speaker at their events.
All that and the Lightning Round, too.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
FOLLOW US
Here's where you can find us:
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
A quick question for you. What does studying the effect of smoking bans on bars have in common with convincing basketball coaches that shooting more threes is the key to winning?
Absolutely nothing, as it turns out. Well, nothing, unless your name is Ben Alamar. If you’re Ben Alamar, those 2 things are linked at the hip.
That’s because when Ben was managing a UCSF smoking study back in the day, he answered a help wanted ad for a fantasy sports company who was looking for someone to help manage their data. That was the first time the economist realized that there was an entire industry that might one day need his expertise in analyzing information.
Safe to say that realization has worked out pretty well for Mr Alamar. Starting with that fantasy sports company, Ben has now worked with a vast number of sports teams and organizations to help transform how they look at and use data. Those experiences serve as the foundation for his industry defining text, "Sports Analytics", which is now in its 2nd printing.
In our conversation, we talk about how integral data analytics is to sports both on the field and in the front office, how having a clear mission for using data is an essential key to success, and where the field is headed in the next few years.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
FOLLOW US
Here's where you can find us:
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
Let’s begin this episode with a few questions. First off, do you work in sports? Number 2: would you like to work in sports? Alright, one more: do you know someone who’d like to work in sports?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then this episode is absolutely for you.
My guests on the show are Amy Gutierrez and Celeste Gehring, two long time sports media executives who host the quickly growing “Girl, How’d You Get That Gig?” podcast. In it, they interview female sports business executives to review their career paths, share secrets to their success, and provide advice to others seeking to follow in their steps.
And while their show is nominally for women, the lessons and advice they tease out have value for everyone. Honestly, just the stuff we talk about in this show is enough to get anyone a leg up in their search for a sports business job, or to advance from the one they already have. It’s s really positive discussion, even taking into account some pickleball trash talk toward the end.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
FOLLOW US
Here's where you can find us:
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
At one point in his career, Lloyd Danzig, the founder of Sharp Alpha Advisors, was pretty confident that there was money to be made in what he calls the competitive entertainment industry. The Supreme Court had just opened up sports betting for states to adopt, he had a solid investing background, had recently earned a degree in data science, and had always loved fantasy sports. So good to go, right?
Well, not exactly. Turns out there was still one thing missing. And that was permission to fail.
Now with investments in over 30 online gaming start ups, Lloyd and Sharp Alpha are light years away from failure. In our conversation, Lloyd and I talk about the process of launching his venture capital firm, and why having a mentor share that wisdom about failure was so integral to his future success. We also cover the growth of online gaming, the competitive entertainment market, and what he looks for when making investments.
He also fills us in on what the unending torture of being a NY Jets fan is like. And it’s awful.
A special shout out to Brent von Forstmeyer and the University of San Francisco Sports Management program for letting me use their downtown offices to make this recording with Lloyd.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.
FOLLOW US
Here's where you can find us:
YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.
Mentioned in this episode:
SponsorCX
SponsorCX helps properties efficiently manage all their sponsorships to improve collaboration with their partners.
SponsorCX
The podcast currently has 61 episodes available.
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