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The experience of being a sports fan today sucks. It's so much more expensive. There's so many subscriptions. Gambling ads are absolutely everywhere.

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It felt like there was an opportunity here to try to report on the things that I think fans care about, but no one is actually kinda putting out there. I do wanna hear about your process for producing videos.

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There's a lot of clickbaity sports content out there. How do I stand out in this landscape? That is the thing that I right now am, like, hyper-fixated on.

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The thing that I care the most about is, like, making sure that the big picture ultimately lands as best as it humanly can. What is keeping you up at night? I think what keeps me up is-

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Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast.

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My name is Francis Zier, and today we're speaking with Joon Lee, a sports journalist who was most recently at ESPN and is now building Morning Announcements, a sports media company that currently has, as its crown jewel, his YouTube channel, which is under his name, Joon Lee.

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This is a conversation about transitioning from being a journalist to being a creator and all the decisions and challenges one has to tackle in making that transition and adapting to independent life. Hope you enjoy.

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With your YouTube, you made a decision to leave about 123 videos on there from when you were in high school, 12 to 16 years ago. Most of your videos are from there.

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Um, a lot of these have quite a few views, but you were doing tech reviews and such.

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Uh, now, you know, uh, I think it's five months ago that you uploaded your, your first new video there, which is about your layoff and explaining your intent and why sports media is broken is, is in the title.

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Um, that I thought was a really interesting decision. Tell me about the decision to, to keep that part there.

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Yeah, I mean, the channel, I think, when I launched it in its new iteration, had around four thousand subscribers. Mm-hmm. And I did this YouTube channel,

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I think the first video's probably in like 2008, 2009, when I was in eighth grade. I think the first video on the channel publicly right now is a macOS Snow Leopard review- [laughs] It is, yeah... or overview. Um, and

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that was kind of like the beginnings of my YouTube journey. I mean, there's, there's some stuff privated on there that I, like, posted with friends back in the day- Yeah...

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um, where we're just, like, making silly, like, Lonely Island knockoff sketches. Um, but I think YouTube has always been very central to, like, the way that I, like, engage with pop culture and- Mm...

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um, just things in the world. Uh, and during that time, like, the tech YouTube community was still not what it is now, where you see people like, you know, Marques Brownlee- Yeah...

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and, and Linus Tech Tips and all those guys. They're, you know, multi-million dollar media companies. And at the time when I was- But I feel like-- S-sorry to interrupt you quickly.

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I mean, Marques, you and I are about the same age. I, I think Marques Brownlee is also about our age, right? So you were, you and him were kind of in the same pool at the, at this time. Yeah.

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So, uh, you know, I, I wouldn't claim that Marques and I are, like, friends and talking every day- No... or anything like that, but we were in the same internet universe, and we all knew the same people.

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And it was interesting because there was this, like, sense of YouTube becoming a career at that moment, where people were starting to make money on AdSense, and, um, you know, I think Smosh was big at the time.

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Ryan Higa was big at the time. Mm-hmm. Ray William Johnson was, was blowing up with Equals Three. It's like very early YouTube days. You know, Bo Burnham had, had already kind of blown up to some degree.

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And so for me, when I got to college, you know, after going through the early days of tech YouTube, I kinda looked at myself, and I was just like, "Okay.

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I can either go all in on this tech YouTube stuff," 'cause the videos were starting to get traction around the time my senior year of high school was coming, uh, uh, was coming to an end. And

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I was like, "Okay, these are starting to get a hund- couple hundred thousand views." Like- Well, let me, let me say really quickly too, it's still to this day your second most popular video on there- [laughs]...

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which is 13 years old. 200, uh, 229,000 views. It's four celebrity headphones better than [laughs] Beats by Dre. Yeah. So, um, I, you know, they were starting to get views. I was making legitimate money off of it. And,

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yeah, I was thinking like, "Okay, do I actually wanna spend my career doing tech YouTube stuff, or do I wanna pursue this career in sports journalism?" And I, I knew that, like,

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sports journalism is very competitive, and it's intense, and it's a lot of fun, but I knew I needed to kinda put my full energy into it if I wanted to make a career out of it. And so- Mm...

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uh, when I got to college, you know, I had spent four years doing the YouTube channel.

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At that point, uh, I had, I think I'd spent three years also interning at the Boston Herald sports section, um, during the summers, and I'd kind of had experiences in both worlds.

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And I was just like, "I just prefer doing the sports stuff." Um, and so in college, I dedicated all of my time to sports. And during that time, I saw folks like Marques, Austin Evans, Unbox Therapy.

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I think the iPhone BendGate scandal happened during that time. I felt like that was the first huge moment for tech YouTube as, like, a almost journalistic platform in some ways.

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And I saw them all blow up, and they all built these media companies, and I was just like, "Oh, that's incredible."

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Like, I, it was, it was incredible to see all these people who I, like, was, you know, vaguely internet friendly with, like, blowing up and, and building careers out of it. Mm-hmm.

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At the time, like, sports wasn't really a thing on YouTube because of the rights deals.

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Like, I remember making, um, highlight reels of, um, athletes when I was, like, in high school, and they would always get copyright striked down- Mm-hmm... um, and removed from the platform.

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And so I was just like, "Okay, sports just, like, isn't a thing here yet," but at some point it feels like the sports world will figure out that there's something here on YouTube.

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Well, at this time too, I understand, like, a bunch of the broadcasters who actually did have the rights weren't really getting into YouTube yet.

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Like, uh, about a year ago, I interviewed this guy, Alex Emery, who's a YouTube strategist for the YouTuber, John Nellis, who's a big football, soccer, uh, YouTuber in the UK.

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When I was interviewing him, um, by the way, they were at, like, one point-Three million. He said maybe in five years we'll get to 10 million.

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Less than a year they got to 10 million, but they're doing a lot of skits around the game. They don't have the rights to the games, right?

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But [laughs] the reason, the actual reason I bring this up is, um, he used to be at Sky before he did this, and he got their YouTube to a million, not...

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whi- which was like, I don't remember exactly, but it must have been around like twenty twenty. Around there. Much later, I'm saying, uh, than, than when you were on, when you were uploading highlight reels.

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It took a while for the people who actually had the rights to catch up. Yeah, 100%. And so

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I always just kept YouTube in the back of my mind because I, I just watched YouTube way more than I did television, and I just preferred the freedom of the format and the fact that you could make videos as long or as short as you wanted.

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In 2019, I went to ESPN, um, and ESPN was at the beginnings of starting to revamp their social strategy in some ways, like taking a lot of the stuff that we'd figured out at BR and, and re-implementing it there.

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They ended up hiring Omar I think six months after I got to, to ESPN, and he completely revamped their Instagram and TikTok and all that Twitter strategy.

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Uh, but YouTube was not kind of at the foremost of their, their minds in terms of thinking about the future of the company. And so there was a lot of like back and forth there.

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And so when I was part of the layoffs in 2023, I mean, the first thought that I had in my mind was, uh, I'm gonna launch a YouTube channel.

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Um, at that point, you know, I'd, I'd taken a lot of inspiration from folks like Marquez Brownlee. Mm-hmm.

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I believe Cleo Abram had, had launched at that point, and I was starting to see her start to build up her YouTube channel.

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Um, and a lot of the Vox folks like Johnny Harris had started to, to leave and, and build out their own things. And I was just like, okay, there's clearly like a business model here.

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Um, seeing someone like Marquez who had built up his business for about ten years and had built up his trust and community around credibility with his audience, there was a lot of like journalistic parallels I felt like to what I was hoping to pursue in sports.

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Um, and so I had two years left on my contract, um, at ESPN when I got laid off. And so, uh, I spent those two years figuring out like how to put together a YouTube channel. For... Wait.

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Uh- For the listeners real quick too, so you had two years left where they were paying you at the full rate, but you- Yes...

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were basically not allowed to write about sports, not allowed to go on TV, not allowed to make a YouTube channel. Two years of kind of being in limbo while still being fully paid. Yes.

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So I, I had signed a three-year contract at ESPN.

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I was laid off I think about fourteen months into that contract, and I had twenty-two months left when I got laid off, and they had kind of the legal right to say no to basically whatever opportunities came to my way for those twenty-two months, and they said pretty-- no to pretty much everything.

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I wanted to launch the YouTube channel, and they said no. Um, I had writing opportunities that I wanted to do, and they said no. And so I was just like, okay, well, I got twenty-two months now.

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So like- Was the alternative- Let's- Real quick. Was the alternative like you basically saying like, "Okay, well, we can void that, and I won't get paid, and now I can go do whatever"? Yes. It was. Mm-hmm.

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So there was an opportunity for me to just like leave all the money on the table, uh, and just go out and do my own thing.

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And for both the financial reasons and also just like a life reasons, I was just like, I was twenty-seven, I think, when I got laid off. Mm-hmm. I don't have kids.

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Uh, I'm engaged now, but I, you know, uh- Congratulations... not married. Like- Mm-hmm... how many times does a person get the opportunity to do this? It's very, very rare.

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So let's just like take these twenty-two months off and, you know, do some traveling, uh, just study sports. I read a ton of sports books. I read a ton of media books and try, try to just get a sense for

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where I think things are going.

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I learned a lot about soccer during that time and went to Europe multiple times and watched games, which was great and I think helped me kind of get immersed in that culture a little bit more, um, and just get me interested in, in all of it.

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And I watched a lot of like Colin Samir and John Ushe videos to just get a sense of like how people are thinking about the creator com-- economy from a business standpoint and the strategies that people have to, uh, you know,

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create good thumbnails, create good titles- Yeah... create good hooks and intros. Um, just get myself thinking in the right way, even though I legally couldn't put anything out there.

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Um, so- You were in the jail, so to speak. Yeah. Both, both literally and metaphorically. [laughs] Um, 'cause, you know, you only have so many things to do when- Yeah... when you don't have a job for almost two years.

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Um, and it was a very weird time. Like- Mm-hmm... the-- it's very unrelatable to like be paid to not do anything for almost two years. Yeah. Um, but for me, it also created...

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It felt like there was an opportunity here to try to report on the things that I think fans care about but no one is actually kind of putting out there. Um, and,

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uh, the way that the industry has changed in sports because of Stephen A. Smith and First Take, everything has kind of become either hot takes- Mm-hmm... um, or it's like former players breaking stuff down.

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And this like room where journalists could kind of bring in insight and reporting has kind of disappeared in a lot of corporate media.

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Like there's just not as, just not as much emphasis on writing and reporting as there used to be. Mm-hmm.

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And, uh, it felt like there just was an opening there to try to fill in those gaps with stuff like YouTube and podcasts.

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Like there-- I think there's a massive opportunity there still to this day to meet sports fans where they're at 'cause I think that sports media is just not doing that. Hi there.

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My name's Tom, and I'm the producer here on Creator Spotlight.

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I promise we'll get back to the episode in about thirty seconds or so, but just before we do that, I was just looking through our YouTube analytics, and I realized that around seventy percent of you that are regularly watching this channel, you're not actually subscribed to the channel,

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and at first that might sound a bit mad. Seventy percent is a lot.

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But then I started thinking about how I watch YouTube, and it's kinda the same.You watch the same creators every week, so YouTube keeps recommending those creators to you.

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You don't actually need to hit subscribe a lot of the time.

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The difference here is we've got this regular weekly show that we're doing, but we're also about to start putting out new content, breakdown videos, further insights, highlights, and just some new formats that are gonna shake things up a little bit.

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So if you subscribe to the channel, we want to repay the favor.

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Leave a comment, tell us how we can improve it, and we're gonna listen to every single comment, and we're gonna be constantly improving the videos, putting out new content, so you can get the most out of every creator that we interview.

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We really appreciate it. Thank you. Back to the episode. I've spoken to a few people who give me the impression, they didn't say this, but I did after speaking to them, that traditional media can be, you know...

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I, I'll say the h- the hot take version is traditional media is now just a boot camp for independent journalists, right? [laughs] Which is a pleasure. That's the hot take version.

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But I say this, you've been referencing Vox and Cleo Abram and Johnny Harris and these, you know, great people who came out of Vox and have built these really popular, lucrative, uh, media brands.

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Um, there was a period in time earlier this year where I accidentally scheduled three interviews, uh, three interviews in a row with people who were former Vox journalists who'd been laid off, um, and, [laughs] and one of them, Kofi, I know, I know you know Kofi Yeboah, uh, he was laid off from SB Nation, or from Secret Base, excuse me, in between the time I interviewed him and published it, in, in that three-week interim.

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And it was kind of this, like, sick joke of like, wow, this is... I just keep interviewing these laid-off Vox journalists.

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Um, but the question I have for you is whether or not you agree with some version of this idea that, uh, you know, layoffs are as... Death, taxes, and layoffs, right? These, these certain things in media.

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Um, do you think that this characterization of traditional media organizations as essentially grad schools or boot camps for would-be indie creator journalists, do you think that holds water? In some ways, yeah.

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I mean, I think that there's still people who view the corporate journalism path as their end game, whether it's wanting- Mm-hmm... to do TV or, or whatever else. And, you know, that's the path that some people choose.

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For me, like, my goal was always independence, even, you know, a- since, even since I got that job at ESPN- Yeah... uh, you know, in twenty nineteen.

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Uh, my, my end game has always been launching something independently on YouTube at some point. Um, it came a little bit faster than I thought it was going to, but that was where I always thought my career was headed.

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And so I just wanted to learn as much as possible. And I got to work with some of the most incredible editors in the industry, and I think they really helped in- helped sharpen my perspective from a writing perspective.

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You know, I was on, um, a TV show called Around the Horn, uh, at ESPN. Mm-hmm.

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Uh, that was like a panel debate show with, with a lot of journalists, and I would say it's a little bit less, like, aggressively hot take-y than, um, the way that people kind of view First Take.

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Uh, and we would talk about a lot of, like, cultural issues and that kind of stuff.

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And working with the producers there, uh, really helped me sharpen my on-air point of view and how to present myself on camera, 'cause I had very little experience doing that beforehand. Um- Mm-hmm...

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in regards to just, like, trying to fit, like, a nuanced take in thirty seconds. Like, I had come up in the age of the internet, where I had no word count, and I had unlimited airtime because I made videos on YouTube.

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And so that really, I think, helped sharpen my point of view there. And then just, like, talking with, like, some of these incredible producers on these shows, I think, um, helped me just...

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I think broadened my perspective on how I can make an impact through doing work on camera. And so for me, it was definitely, it felt like getting a PhD in, like, sports journalism, working with- Yeah... these people.

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Totally. And getting to learn from, you know, amazing, you know, sports journalists like, uh, like Buster Olney and, and Jeff Passan and people who I worked with on the baseball team.

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You get a sense for how people at the top of their game, like, really work and their work ethic and, um, how they maintaining and manage relationships and, you know, being able to work with incredibly talented people on Around the Horn, like, you know, Mina Kimes and Pablo Torre and, um, so many other incredible journalists and, and people who I, who I've become friends with.

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Um, it really forced me to, I think, step up my game and I think raise my standard of excellence.

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And I think that, um, I would not be in the position where I felt ready to go out on my own without having gone through all of ESPN, whether it's- Mm-hmm...

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on the just figuring out, getting better at, like, the basics and also, like, managing the politics of being at a company that is as big as ESPN is. Yeah.

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I, uh, I spoke to-- I was invited to speak to this media writing 101, or me- 201 class at, at Texas A&M. This was yesterday. We spoke to them, um, my assistant, Andrew, and Natalia and I. And it was interesting.

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They said that they have, like, a speaker every week, and the previous week had been this investigative reporter who her advice to them for if they're about to graduate, uh, was, "Go and get a job at a traditional media company, and, and that's...

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You have to do that first, and that's how you learn." And my thought was, yes, do that, but also you should be, whether it's your YouTube channel or your newsletter or whatever, you should be making something.

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And it might not be good, but it, that's like necess- both necessary reps to, to just put stuff out that, that has your name or your face on it, but also, um, in the event, the inevitable event of a layoff, to kind of be building your audience and your presence.

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Um, I'm curious if you, what your version of this advice is to, to any, you know, journalism students who are about to graduate or just graduated, what should they prioritize?

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I've had journalism students ask me this question, and I have a hard time answering it sometimes just because my path that I took to get to where I am does, literally doesn't exist anymore. Yeah.

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[laughs] Like, BR Mag is, like, not a thing that Bleacher Report funds.

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Um, and so-The thing that I always try to tell people is try to create opportunities for yourself to do this type of work that you want to end up doing. Mm-hmm. Whether it's video stuff or writing, just try to do that.

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I remember when I was in college, you know, the typical, like, sports journalism path is, like, you start as a beat writer and then maybe get promoted to, like, a features writer or a columnist or whatever, and I just like, I personally just, like, wasn't interested in, in beat writing and wanting to do that full time.

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And as a result, I tried to create as many opportunities as I could to do magazine writing, which was kind of in its last legs of- Mm... being a thing that people still paid money for. And, um,

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I would just do freelance writing in college while I was working at the student newspaper. I did some stuff with The Ringer, I did some stuff for FanGraphs, um, which is a baseball analytics website.

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I would just do these kind of big reported feature stories. I did stuff for SB Nation as well. Mm-hmm.

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And those stories are what got me on the radar of my eventual editor at Bleacher Report because when they were hiring for B/R Mag, they wanted to hire people who had experience doing magazine writing.

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And because I had put in the reps doing magazine writing when no one was asking me to do that, I suddenly was on the radar with the right peoples to be able to do the job that I wanted to do. Mm-hmm.

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And so that's, that's more of a, like, big picture, like, direction advice versus, like, a you gotta do X, Y, Z. Um, I think it's important to just be- That, that X, Y, Z doesn't exist.

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They c- whatever X, Y, Z you give now in four years will be irrelevant. Right. And so I think it's important to just, like, have clarity and perspective on what you want to do.

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If you wanna be a creator, influencer person, you know, you can go do that. Mm-hmm. And there's a way to make a career in sports doing that.

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If you wanna be, like, an investigative journalist, like, get reps doing that at your student newspaper.

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Try to do big investigative pieces on something in that world because having all that stuff on your resume gives people the perspective to be like, "Oh, he knows how to do this thing.

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I'll put them in the pers- you know, position to be able to continue doing that thing." If you wanna do YouTube, if you wanna do TikTok, like, just start making the videos, and it doesn't matter if they're not very good.

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Like, you can go back and watch some of my- Exactly... YouTube videos from when I was in high school. They're not very good [laughs], you know.

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And, uh, you know, it's a, I think there's been a big improvement since I was, like, 14 years old and making YouTube videos. Mm-hmm.

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And so, you know, that, like, kind of treadmill of continuing to improve, it, it doesn't ever really stop, at least for me. Yeah.

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And so, you know, it's, it's not about, like, being attached to, like, w- what you th- the final product of what you put out today is not gonna be the final product of what it is a year from now.

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And so I try to, like, I try to get obsessed with process versus results.

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Like, I try to, as best as I can, which is not always possible in this industry, to get, uh, more attached to feeling like I improved something in this video- Mm...

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versus, like, getting attached to the view counts or the comments or the likes. And, like, that kinda stuff is, is very important for, like, making sure that the business is functional in the long term. Yeah.

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Um, but I don't think you can get there without, like, also being very fixated on, like, learning how to write, report, do the creative things that get you to a place where you find an audience.

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Like, my early days of writing- Yeah... I was writing for, like, 50 people, and eventually I was writing for ESPN where, like, uh, you know, people would read...

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You know, some of the articles would get millions and millions of views. So it's like,

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I try to keep that in perspective, especially where I am now in kind of the early days of my YouTube journey, where, um, there are days where I, like, get a little fixated too much on the likes and the views and that kinda stuff and asking myself, like, "Why isn't this happening faster?"

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Um, and it's- You're, you're opening up the YouTube Studio app on your phone- Yeah... and, and refreshing- Yeah... the dashboard there. Okay. Well, I- Yeah. I know I- Oh, go ahead.

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I, I know I'm in a bad head space when my fiance looks over and she sees me- [laughs]... on YouTube Studio on my phone. And it's not... Here's the worst part.

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It's not even, like, the downloaded app version of YouTube Studio. I'm wa- I'm looking at it in the browser. Oh, my God. Which means that like- You've like tried to stop yourself from doing it- Yeah...

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but you still did it. [laughs] It's like I try... I, I put all... I di- I never download the YouTube Studio app- Oh, my God...

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on my phone, but I'm looking at it in the internet browser, which is a terrible user experience. [laughs] That's so twisted. That's so twisted.

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Uh, so- And that's how I know my brain is in a bad place, and that's usually- Yeah... like a, "Hey, let's take a step back" place. Let's talk the, like, touch grass, leave the phone at home, and go on a walk.

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Um, I, so I- Thank you for the perspective... I wanna, I wanna get into the, the sustainability of the business and such in a second, but speaking about process, I do wanna hear about your process for producing videos.

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So there's two videos I, I kind of was looking at as examples here. Um, I watched both of these. One is your most popular one, 513,000 views as we speak.

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It's How Knockoff Jerseys Became Better Than Real Ones, 13 minutes long.

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A lot of this one is basically you going into the shop in New York and, and, and talking about jerseys with the, the guys who run the shop, these experts.

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And then there's another one, um, Why Kylian Mbappé Has Failed at Real Madrid. This one's very animation heavy. It's also much longer, 22 minutes long.

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These seem to be examples of two specific types of videos that you produce, one that's kinda more on the ground, one that's more animation, talking head voiceover.

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So I don't know which one you'd prefer to start with, but tell me about the full process for producing one of these videos and how much work goes into it. Sure. Yeah. So for the jersey video, uh,

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during my time off, there was a big scandal in Major League Baseball where the jerseys had been introduced th- with new fabric and material, and, uh, they were so thin that, like, players were complaining about it.

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The names on the back had gotten small, and it turned into this, like, literally national story about- Mm... the quality of baseball jerseys becoming bad, and it felt like the tipping point of all this stuff.

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And I would... It was one of those stories where I was like, "This is, like, literally in my wheelhouse. I wish I was able to, like, do stuff right now." [laughs] Um, and so I would go to this jersey shop, Mr.

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Throwback, where I'm friendly with the guys, and we'd just, like-Talk about sports, 'cause I just, like, missed talking about sports- Yeah...

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during my time off on, on TV, and these guys, you know, know, know their sports. Um, and we became, became friends. And so, you know,

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I, I also over the years have, like, collected sports jerseys 'cause that's just who I am, and I just have noticed I have a, like, bag of them in my closet.

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You can lay them out, like, over the years, and you can see the quality- Right... like, slowly degrading over time.

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And I just kind of followed the rise of Fanatics over the course of the last decade or so, um, and seeing the way that, like, the consumer fan jersey experience had changed, in some ways for the better, but I would argue much more for the worse in, in most ways.

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And I decided to bring an old jersey, and I decided to bring a new Fanatics jersey to the shop and just ask them what they thought about the quality differences, and they broke it down.

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This was, like, me doing my journalist thing and, like, asking experts.

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Like, I have a perspective on this, but it would come from a place of much more credibility when I'm asking people who, uh, can, you know, see what under...

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They know what decade, like, a jacket was made based on, like- Yeah... the label tag. Like, I can't do that. And so they have a much broader perspective on the topic than I do.

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And so I brought the jerseys in and got the expert opinion, and then from there I kind of took that expert opinion and the analysis that, like, the Fanatics jerseys, the newer jerseys, were not as good as the old ones, and I explained why that has happened from a sports business perspective.

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Mm.

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And Fanatics has basically created a monopoly over the course of the last decade where they've bought up all the journey- jersey manufacturers and have all the exclusive licensing deals for all the major sports leagues in the United States and, and some parts in Europe.

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And so there's no competition anymore, and I think it was a way for fans to take something that they experience in their day-to-day life, which is, here's a jersey that I buy, and the quality is not as good as it used to be.

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When you put it in the wash, sometimes the numbers peel off now in a way that they didn't before. You know, jerseys used to be sewn in.

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You know, the names and numbers, they were all sewn in, and now they're all heat pressed- Mm-hmm... um, which is part of why they're peeling off. Why is that happening?

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And so I think I helped answer that question with, uh, kind of a why answer and kind of diving into the sports business part.

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Um- And it really resonates because it's a question that any sports fan who's ever bought a jersey or recently bought a jersey is gonna have 'cause they're gonna be... they're gonna think, "Why is this falling apart?"

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And I, I can't speak for us. Yeah. And fr- and frankly, like, I, I, I didn't expect that video to take off the way [laughs]- It did that well, huh? Yeah. I, I didn't know that it had five- 500,000 views now, uh- Yeah...

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until you just mentioned it. So, um- That's good. You haven't been checking YouTube Studio that frequently recently. [laughs] Yeah, I've been trying, trying my best not to check it as much, uh, recently.

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Um, this has been, like, the correction to me being on my phone, uh, you know, going on YouTube Studio on the Safari browser. Um, so yeah, there's, there's, there's that.

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Um, and it was, it was cool to see that video take off, um, especially because I feel like it's a topic that

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I think the traditional news editor would be a little bit hesitant to green light just 'cause it, on the surface, feels a little niche- Mm... um, which is, like, the sports jersey enthusiast experience.

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Um, and then the video on Kylian Mbappé, you know, I had profiled him for, uh, Bleacher Report, and this was before he had become a global superstar. He's been on the cover of FIFA, I think, like, three times now. Yeah.

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Um, he's probably one of the f- five most famous people in the world. Interesting. Um, and I had met him when he had just gone to Paris Saint-Germain.

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Um, he had played at Monaco when he was 19 years old, and he had all this hype as this young prospect.

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Um, and he was coming to play with Neymar, who was, like, the big flashy signing, and this was supposed to be a new era of PSG, uh, football, which has historically had a reputation of just, like,

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kind of being like the MLS where people go to, like, cash a check near the end of their career- Yeah... and then kinda peace out.

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Um, y- for him, going to PSG was going to play for his childhood team, and he wanted to become the pride of Fan- France.

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Like, he had all this, uh, weight on his shoulders where he was coming from, uh, this neighborhood called Bondy, which is on the outskirts of Paris.

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Um, it is not the romanticized Paris that you see in shows like, you know, Emily in Paris- Emily in Paris. Mm-hmm... or, or, or, uh, you know, uh, The Summer I Turned Pretty in, in, in recent weeks.

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Like, it is not that city, a part of that city at all. It is, like, a worn down, like, brutalist architecture. Like, it is, it is, it is very, like, working class, and it's very immigrant heavy.

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And Mbappé became the symbol of the promise of France and, like, almost the French equivalent of the American Dream where he had come from this neighborhood and become, you know, potentially one of the faces of, of the entire country.

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And so, um, I felt like it was an opportunity to just try to make a longer video and do something- Yeah... that was, uh, kind of pulling on some of the older reporting that I had done.

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I had a bunch of, like, audio of me talking to Mbappé, and he responded in French, and I used kind of translations to be able to, like, kind of draw all of that out and make it feel immersive.

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Um, and it was a little bit... It was kind of an experimental swing just because I hadn't really made a video like that before.

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Um, and it's a v- the type of format that I wanna continue making in the future with the right story, but it's, it's a heavy lift.

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Um, and I, I thankfully I was working with a, a good animator who was able to, like, I think, work through a lot of the issues that came with that story.

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Um, but yeah, I'm trying to build out a bunch of different ways to do journalism- Yeah... um, versus, like, finding one format and just, like, drilling in it as much as I can.

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Um- What, what's, what's the different resourcing lift for a video like this, which is 22 minutes long? It is, like, a lot more kind of i- in-depth building this narrative and such.

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The different resourcing lift between that and, say, the, um, the Fanatics, the jersey video. Sure. Yeah, the Fanatics video, I mean, it was the same-It was the same resources.

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It was one animator who's, does the more complicated stuff. At that time, I was also in After Effects. I, I had hired an animator to create an After Effects toolkit to just give me kind of the basic- Mm...

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bones and framework for kind of the slideshow animation, um, that I have on my channel, that kind of... The theme is, like, sports scrapbook kind of.

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And so I'm trying to create this, like, almost nostalgic, scrapbook-like experience that almost evokes childhood- Mm-hmm...

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when you're watching my videos, to bring people back to that time of, like, being a sports fan and being curious in this, like, earnest, pure way that you only can be when you're a kid following sports, I feel.

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And, um, it was a lot of time of me just, like, sitting in After Effects just, like, sequencing photos and stickers and all this other stuff, and then the animator kind of handled the more intensive animation. Mm.

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Um, but yeah. I mean, that was, that was [laughs] honestly the video that kind of, like, was like, "Damn, I think I need help. I need help with editing. I need..."

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I- 'cause it just like, if I wanted to be able to do as good of reporting as I could- Yeah...

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um, and be able to make these kind of more ambitious pieces, like, I need to spend more time, like, writing and thinking about hooks and thinking about titles and thumbnails and all that stuff. Um- So wait.

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So speaking about help, so, um, when we spoke, uh, at Colin Smithers Press Publish, you said that you were, you had, you were telling me a little bit about plans to build out a team, part- partially contractors, maybe partially some full-timers.

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Um, now I wanna hear a little bit about, let's say, the, the fol- the, the from now one-year roadmap of, like, what, who do you need to bring in? Who do you need to bring in on a video-to-video basis?

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Who do you need to bring in, um, on a full-time basis? What is kind of the, the plan to make Morning Announcements the company over the next year? Yeah.

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I mean, I don't wanna put specifics on, like, who I am going to be- Yeah... able to hire full time. Well, it's... I'm, I'm not a big one on predictions. Sure.

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So this is, this is more just, like, kind of ideal scenarios that I'm w- the listener can assume that this is not exactly what's gonna happen. Sure.

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I mean, ideally I would like to be able to have someone who's a full-time animator and a full-time video editor. Uh, and they also serve as, like, kind of producers- Yeah... on hand as well. Um,

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right now that's, like, I- I'm doing some of the video editing, at least the, some of the A-roll stuff that kinda gets the ball rolling. Um, and I have an animator who does the more complicated stuff.

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Um, and I've been also working with video editors who kind of help kind of piece all that together. Um, and so that's the hope. Um, but it's, uh, definitely a, a work in progress as it is right now.

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Well, to achieve this hope, right, you need, you need revenue. Tell me, uh, I, I don't know if you're pre-revenue or if you, you do have some revenue coming in right now.

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Tell me what, how you're making money through this right now, and then again maybe in a year what the ideal revenue mix is. Like perce- at X percentage ads, X percentage more in-depth brand deal, whatever that is. Sure.

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Yeah. I mean, from a revenue standpoint we are bringing in revenue. Um, Google AdSense is, for the YouTube channel, the main source of revenue right now. I've had sponsors reach out interested in- Mm...

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doing video placements.

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Um, and both the brand fit and the f- the rate fit just didn't make sense for, I think, where the channel is right now, where I think we're early and we're still developing trust with fans and the audience.

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And, um, it's a priority for me that when we do eventually take video sponsors, that the fit makes sense and that, um, you know, it's, it's not sports gambling. Um- Yes...

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and so it's stuff that I feel comfortable being like, "This video's been brought to you by XYZ." And so I'm being very selective in how I introduce sponsorships in, because I think it's important that

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I'm prioritizing trust as much as I can while also being able to run a business for the long term. Uh, so, you know, there's revenue on, on the video side already, which is great- Yeah...

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and is helping fund the, you know, the freelancers that I'm working with who are very talented.

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Um, on top of that, like, thankfully, as someone who has, like, been in journalism for as, you know, about a decade now, I have the opportunity to do freelance writing. I've been doing stuff for- Mm...

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the New York Times. I wrote an op-ed column for The Times, and I'm working on another one right now- Nice... um, that I'm very excited about. Um, that's opened up new doors.

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I've, you know, I've done freelance writing for other places as well. I've done some stuff for The Boston Globe. I wrote an op-ed there. Um, and I've done some stuff from Yahoo Sports as well.

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Um, there's been some other opportunities that I've had to turn down just because, like, I only have so much time in the day.

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Um, I spent two, my two years off also working on a book that we're gonna shop at, when the time is right, that's about fandom and how- Yeah... uh, fandom has, has changed the world.

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Um, and so thankfully I'm in a place where I'm not relying on the YouTube channel to fund my life- Yeah... or, or even make the most money. It is the thing that I probably am most emotionally invested in right now.

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But- Okay... it's not necessary for every single video to pop off for me to, like, pay the bills or pay my rent or, you know, go out to dinner. Um, and so

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that, I think, has taken a lot of pressure off, because I spent the first three months, like, really just experimenting to see, like, what stuck and what didn't, 'cause, like, I didn't really know what was gonna work and what didn't.

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Yeah. And frankly, like, I'm still figuring that out. I still don't really know what works [laughs] and what, what doesn't sometimes. And so, um, I think that has been great.

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I mean, I think for the future my hope is to look much more like a traditional YouTube business in that, like-Probably like 65% of revenue comes from, uh, you know, in-video sponsorships.

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You know, 25, 30% comes from, uh, YouTube AdSense, and then 5% is miscellaneous, and that's just for the YouTube side. I wanna continue writing and, you know- Yeah...

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do some freelance TV stuff, um, as well, and keep my toe in that traditional media world without ever kind of going full time again.

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Do you think you'll ever have some kind of paid subscription product, whether it's a Patreon, whether it's a newsletter, whatever it is? Is that something you're interested in? Um, not currently, uh, because

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it's just a lot. I have friends who do the Substack thing full time. Yeah. I have... I, I met with a f- a friend of mine who, uh, has a full-time streaming service for his YouTube channel out in Los Angeles.

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It is a lot of work. Um- You'd rather put your writing into, into publications and have- Yes... YouTube be the thing that's your independent- Yes... realm. Yes.

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Well, okay, so a, a thing about the, the advertisers too is, um, you, you mentioned this a second ago, and then this is also sort of the lead of your, your big I was laid off, here's what I'm doing now video, is that you don't wanna accept sports gambling sponsorships, and you, you frame this as kind of the thing that's ruined, um, sports journalism.

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And then also when there's, you know, when you're, when you [laughs] make this video about how Fanatics jersey quality is, is low quality and they're a monopoly, that's, like, another advertiser that you're kind of pushing off the table.

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So, um, w- like, who are the advertisers? Is there, is there even a thing where, like, maybe you'd partner with a specific sports team to, like, g- get in and make some story about them?

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But obviously then that's kind of getting rid of some journalistic ethic.

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My whole, my, [laughs] my question here is what are you leaving on the table in terms of ad revenue when you're making videos that, um, reject a lot of the big money that's in sports journalism right now?

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I mean, I view the ad landscape as pretty abundant from the sports standpoint. Okay.

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Like, I've heard from executives on the YouTube side that there are advertisers, like, willing to bang down the door with sports creators, and there's, you know, there's already huge creators like Jesser and Destroying.

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Mm-hmm. But sports YouTube hasn't really, like, grown and scaled to the rest of YouTube's, like, standards yet. Yeah.

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It's still in its, like, first inning infancy stage, and I think that there's a level of, like, trust that big brands don't yet have in sports creators and YouTubers, which I actually understand.

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Um, but I think that all of that stuff is going to come in the next few years. Mm. Like, I think back to when

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sports podcasts and podcasts in general were just starting up, and the early advertisers back in those days was, like, SeatGeek.

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It was, um, th- there was just a handful of smaller brands that were advertising on podcasts, and you listen to any podcast now, you'll still hear the SeatGeeks of the world- Yeah...

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um, but you'll also hear McDonald's and Coca-Cola and, you know, all those major brands are still advertising, uh, alongside, you know, the old traditional stuff like, you know, TV and, and, and everything else. And so

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I think that where sports YouTube is at specifically, um, it's gonna come a day where the same thing that happened with podcasts where it took a while for these bigger- Yeah...

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brands and advertisers to come into the sports creator space, I think all that stuff is gonna happen. I think it's almost inevitable actually because that's just the way that, like, eyeballs are moving.

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Um, you know, the challenge, I, I think that this is...

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I mean, a similar question that I think every single media outlet faces today is, like, how do you balance, you know, having advertisers with still doing rigorous journalism?

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Like, I'm not saying that I'm The New York Times, but- Yeah... The New York Times faces very similar challenges of, like, how do you make sure that this business runs, and how do you balance that with journalism?

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Um, and so for me, what keeps me afloat is that, like, I don't have this massive corporate structure.

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I don't have, you know, a bunch of middle management executives who are helping manage a bunch of people who are doing the work. I can keep things really lean. Like, I both am, like, the CEO of the company,

254
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uh, of my YouTube channel. I'm b- you know, the top producer on the channel. I'm doing video editing. Like, and I have a handful of people helping me out part-time right now and hopefully eventually full-time.

255
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And so if I'm able to keep things lean, I've seen my other YouTuber friends be able to do that. I mean, you look at the sports... I, I look at the tech space all the time- Yeah... where it's like,

256
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the tech YouTubers aren't taking sports gambling money, and they have major companies that work, you know?

257
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Um- Well, wait, wait, something, something I've been wondering about too since we talked about it at the beginning of this conversation is, uh, how you were making money when you were doing your tech YouTubing back in the day.

258
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Was this just AdSense, or did you have some brand deals? And what did that teach you about what you have to do now? I think what I learned from the old tech YouTube days, this was before brand deals were really a thing.

259
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Um- Pure, pure AdSense. Yeah, it was mostly pure AdSense. I think the brand deals were starting to become a thing by my last year doing tech YouTube, which was 2013, and

260
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people were starting to get these, like, in-video sponsors. I think, like, dbrand was, like, starting to sponsor a lot of these tech YouTubers, and people were starting to make, like, legitimate money.

261
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And so what I learned from the time then is that

262
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what advertisers are ultimately looking for in the long term with these brand deals and the creators that they partner with is someone who has trust and credibility- Mm... with their audience. And

263
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in order to have as much trust and credibility as you can with your audience, you need to say the truth, and if you're living in a world as a sports fan where sports gambling is completely inescapable

264
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and no one in the media is acknowledging it, it's harder to main that, attain that level of trust with, with the, the reporters or the journalists or the hosts that are on the television. Mm-hmm.

265
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You know, there's almost more trust in the hosts who are very upfront about the fact that they have gambled.

266
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I think that's part of why someone like Scott Van Pelt-On ESPN has been so successful for such a long time, and it still feels organic and natural in this era, is like he's been doing gambling segments for 15, 20 years on SportsCenter.

267
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He's been doing Bad Beats. Mm. And like, I've never been a sports gambler, but that segment was always entertaining because- Yeah...

268
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it kind of framed gambling in an interesting way, and it kinda gives you odds, and like, oh, there's something there. And this is before it was so sat- It's like he's been, he's, uh, true to this- Right...

269
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not new to this as they say. Yeah. Exactly. And so like he, like when he does sports gambling segments now, and he still does the Bad Beats segment from 20 years ago, it feels organic.

270
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It doesn't feel like someone who's trying to get you to put money into, you know, FanDuel or DraftKings or, or ESPN Bet for that matter. Yeah. And so that's what keeps things, like, grounded, and I think that

271
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what I think is gonna matter in the long run, like I'm playing a long game here. My long game is that like because I don't gamble, and I'm not gonna try to force myself to talk about gambling, uh,

272
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you know, I- I'm gonna keep that stuff out of the channel because that's just not who I am, and I wanna speak to the way that I think sports gambling is completely changing the relationship that fans have with sports media, with their leagues, with their players.

273
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Like, it's, a, it's a video that I'm working on right now, and it's also part of what I'm working on with The Times. Like there is- Yeah... a lot of stuff that's changing right now in sports because of that.

274
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And I think that

275
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if I'm able to build that trust and credibility now when I think that it, trust and credibility is both at a premium and also does not exist in the way that it used to in sports, my hope is that for the long term

276
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that's what's gonna be able to keep the channel f- afloat, is that people when they f- come to my channel, and I say, "This product is sponsoring the channel," and like it's a worthy product to go buy, that it's a good investment for me, for eventually the people who are buying the product, and for, you know, to me as a, in terms of my credibility as well.

277
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Like, that's ul- ultimately this is all about trust. And if- Yeah...

278
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we live in a time in sports media where people feel like they can't trust most people that they're watching on TV, like, it's not, it's not good for anybody f- from literally a journalism standpoint but also from a business standpoint.

279
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It's not sustainable for the long run. Mm-hmm. Um, so when I met you at Press Publish, uh, this was obviously, we go to conferences to, to talk to people, right? And I saw you, and I was like, "That's that guy.

280
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I've seen him, seen his videos. I wanna interview him." Uh, I approached you.

281
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I'm curious the kind of conversations that you were having there inasmuch as you are this journalist entering this creator world, which the way I define creator for the purposes of this show, right, is somebody who's creating digital media for distribution on the Internet, uh, working to grow an audience for it, and then working to monetize it, right?

282
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And I kinda believe that nobody is really good at all three of these things. They have to find people who are good at the ones that they're not good at, et cetera.

283
00:45:31.436 --> 00:45:35.696
Um, long way of asking, like, what were the conversations you needed to have there?

284
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What comes out of that that's like you entering this creator world and needing to, to build these new relationships and new, new skill groups?

285
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I think the thing that I have never been the best at actually is the packaging of my articles. Mm. And now that's packaging into YouTube videos. And so

286
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I was looking for people who had perspective on titles and thumbnails and how to make that as good as possible.

287
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Um, I think it's very s- Like I've never been good at writing headlines when I was like an editor on the student newspaper. Yeah.

288
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Like I was, it just never was I think my strength, um, because I just overthink like the nuance of it. I'm just like, "How do you portray this-" I resonate...

289
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in a way that people click on it without, you know, all of that? Yeah. And so

290
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that was kind of what I was seeking out when I was at Press Publish, was just like gaining perspective on how journalists are packaging that, on how other creators are packaging that.

291
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And like I don't wanna go into the complete like MrBeast like, you know, airbrushed thumbnail world. Because that's all packaging at that point. Right. Yeah.

292
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And so and, and I'm a journalist, and so like how do I find a way to balance like a good photo illustration, you know?

293
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I'm okay with like, magazines all the time have done these like Photoshopped, you know, art- artistic in- illustrations of like kind of abstract ideas.

294
00:46:53.176 --> 00:47:01.296
Um, you see that all the time on like magazine covers, um, back in the day. I kind of view the thumbnail as almost like a magazine cover. How do I- Mm...

295
00:47:01.306 --> 00:47:14.616
how do I like make these, um, ideas into something that feels clickable to people and gives people a sense of intrigue as to what the video is actually about? That is the thing that I

296
00:47:15.596 --> 00:47:24.876
right now am like hyper-fixated on, and I definitely need help to make better on a video-by-video basis, and is a work in progress. Yeah. No, that's really hard.

297
00:47:25.256 --> 00:47:35.976
Um, so one thing, looking at your old videos, uh, you used to leave a lot of comments, um, and it, the wa- you know, YouTube has updated enough times now to where it's like I can't see what they were paired with.

298
00:47:36.476 --> 00:47:39.816
Uh, but, you know, this is kind of a you're in high school, and you're responding to trolls.

299
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Like one was, uh, on that Beats by Dre video, "Yep, a guy with $2,000 in headphones [laughs] and equipment is trying to get people to buy terrible headphones. You got me."

300
00:47:47.756 --> 00:47:52.066
Uh, so one thing I noticed there is you were, you know, the trust thing was really important. You understood that really well then.

301
00:47:52.596 --> 00:48:00.706
Um, but now I was looking in some of your m- your more recent videos, and you're not in the comments as much. Makes sense. You probably have a lot more going on than when you were a high schooler.

302
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Uh, you don't have [laughs] time to, to be in there.

303
00:48:02.936 --> 00:48:12.356
But, um, I'm interested in your relationship with, with the audience and how you're understanding that and how you're engaging with people to, to learn from them about kinda the decisions you have to make.

304
00:48:12.406 --> 00:48:23.336
That is such a funny question 'cause I haven't thought about being a commenter [laughs] back in the day that way. I totally- I would say 'cause you commented a lot. I totally forgot that I used to comment like that.

305
00:48:23.456 --> 00:48:38.176
Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, I mean, I th- I think it's really important. Um, I don't think I have an audience in the way that I do without responding to comments in the way that I definitely used to.

306
00:48:38.236 --> 00:48:51.636
I think I have pulled myself back from that a little bit just because I get more responses now on Twitter especially than I used to- Mm... um, that are sometimes well-intentioned and sometimes not. Yeah.

307
00:48:51.736 --> 00:49:06.176
I think the thing that I've learned about comments from people who have-Been public figure that scales that I am, I'm not at, um, is that the stuff that you respond to is it starts to become a feedback loop. Mm.

308
00:49:06.186 --> 00:49:14.686
And so if people... If you start responding to trolly comments or people who are just dumping on you, it's gonna incentivize more people to continue doing that.

309
00:49:14.716 --> 00:49:27.706
And so I try to be very careful and intentional now about what I do and I don't respond to, um, especially on Twitter, uh, where a sports debate, I think, happens every single day, and I like engaging with people.

310
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If someone pushes back on a point that I made and it's like a respectful version of that, I'm happy to, like, quote Tweet that and go back and forth.

311
00:49:34.106 --> 00:49:44.926
If someone is just, like, being racist or whatever, like, that happens, and so I just try to not engage with it, um, 'cause I don't wanna put more fuel on that fire. Yeah.

312
00:49:44.946 --> 00:49:55.626
And so, um, it's, it's now much more deli- Like, I still like responding to people because I like having conversations with people, especially when I'm out in the world. Um, like, I just...

313
00:49:55.686 --> 00:50:01.356
Especially when I'm, you know, chatting at, you know, at the stadium. Like, I j- I'll talk to everyone just 'cause I- Oh, yeah. That's what it's all about...

314
00:50:01.356 --> 00:50:10.146
I find it interesting to see just, you know, how everyone in, you know, everyone from the security guard to, you know, the owner thinks about what's going on on the field. I find that to be a lot of fun.

315
00:50:10.926 --> 00:50:27.566
Um, but n- with the internet now, I try to be much more careful about it 'cause I don't wanna derail my own head and derail other things by feeding some of this, like, negative energy when it's just, like, negativity for the sake of being neg- negativity.

316
00:50:28.226 --> 00:50:34.526
Yeah. Uh, what is keeping you up at night regarding Morning Announcements right now?

317
00:50:34.566 --> 00:50:43.806
And I'll say that for me with Creator Spotlight, it's that, you know, even when we get a ton of opens on an email, I'm like, "Did that... Did those people just open it, click right out, they didn't read a word?"

318
00:50:43.886 --> 00:50:59.366
Like, "Am I just shouting into the void?" That kinda thing. Um, so yeah. What is, what keeps you up regarding Morning Announcements at right now? I think what keeps me up is trying to figure out

319
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how to do journalism that is, like, rigorous and interesting that will also get views on YouTube. But still packageable. And still packageable.

320
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Like, how do I choose topics that have a YouTube hook, but also get at the substance of, like, what I actually wanna talk about? Mm. And that is a work in progress probably constantly.

321
00:51:25.306 --> 00:51:29.336
Um, but I think I'm...

322
00:51:29.386 --> 00:51:40.106
There are YouTube channels that have done explainer videos and stuff, but I think I'm trying to bring a level of, like, reporting and rigor that is a little bit unusual for the rest of sports YouTube currently. Um, and

323
00:51:41.586 --> 00:51:52.086
trying to, like, not be click... There's a lot of clickbaity sports content- Yeah... out there, and how do I stand out in this landscape, um, and build trust over time?

324
00:51:52.226 --> 00:52:08.786
Um, I think the thing that, that keeps me up, and I think the idea of just trying to, trying to make sure that I don't lose my voice and my perspective while trying to grow the business.

325
00:52:08.956 --> 00:52:12.076
And I think trusting the process of,

326
00:52:13.966 --> 00:52:31.106
like, as I continue to get better at packaging stuff, as I continue to get better at making videos, at, get better at writing hooks, get better at short form, get better at just managing, like, the editors and animators from a creative process standpoint, just getting stuff out on a more regular basis.

327
00:52:31.986 --> 00:52:42.996
How do I do all of that without, um... Compromising nuance is what you're saying. Exactly. Yeah. Compromising the journalism in any way and, and maintaining the trust as much as I, as much as I can. Yeah.

328
00:52:43.046 --> 00:52:46.846
It seems to me that you're trying to be a sort of Cleo Abrams of sports, right?

329
00:52:46.886 --> 00:53:01.066
And I mean, looking at your, uh, at your videos, um, I was, I used Social Blade to look at people's performance on YouTube and Instagram and such, and half of your growth on YouTube since you started doing this again came in the month after you made your announcement video.

330
00:53:01.126 --> 00:53:14.866
And thinking about that compared to then watching some of your videos, which are good, like, I watched those videos and I like 'em, they're, I like them and they're good, but you, you lay out this narrative that people really are rooting for you and come along for, and it hooked me, right, in that initial announcement video.

331
00:53:14.886 --> 00:53:24.326
And talking to you now and listening to some other podcasts you've been on, you're good at building this narrative of, of what you're doing and what you're trying to do and, and what you want to achieve with it, right?

332
00:53:24.726 --> 00:53:36.106
And it's like, I think the hard part, as somebody who also, like, likes to think I produce nuanced content and, and I hate packaging it on YouTube, like me and my editor were having this conversation about this week's where, uh,

333
00:53:37.086 --> 00:53:49.276
w- as we speak this week, we published one with Sophia Smith Galer, this journalist and short form specialist, and it was like, this, why this journalist left, why she left r- you know, the BBC behind to make TikToks.

334
00:53:49.366 --> 00:53:57.906
And I was like, "Well, we can't do that." Like, I think she's gonna hate that because it's not like, yeah, it's true, but it's, like, not really true, right? And, and we went with it and it's, it's doing good.

335
00:53:57.966 --> 00:54:05.266
It's our, you know, it was a 2 of 10 or 1 of 10, um, for most of the time. Um, so I'm, I'm kind of meandering here, but my, my point is that, like,

336
00:54:06.286 --> 00:54:16.746
I see you really explicitly, you have this message discipline in the way you talk about what you're doing. At the beginning of this conversation you were, you, you were kind of adhering to this message discipline, right?

337
00:54:17.246 --> 00:54:18.826
Um, and it took a little bit to get you out of it.

338
00:54:18.926 --> 00:54:30.966
But, uh- [laughs] I, I, uh, yeah, so I, I, I don't know the, what the answer is, but I'm, I guess I'm just saying I see you trying to balance the nuance with the YouTube-ness of it all, and I don't know how.

339
00:54:31.026 --> 00:54:45.046
And people I talk to, there, there seems to be a lot of compromising that has to happen, and, like, you, the G- the Green Goblin mask ends up, you have to, you have to cleave to it a little more, I think. Yeah.

340
00:54:45.126 --> 00:54:55.046
I mean, I think I'm trying to figure out what those compromises are, that I, like, I think everyone in general just has to make compromises in anything- Mm-hmm... in life in some capacity.

341
00:54:55.146 --> 00:55:04.086
Um, and so it's so funny that you bring, bring up message discipline. Um- It's something I think about a lot, 'cause I think it's, I think in, it's, it's how you succeed in the creator economy.

342
00:55:04.136 --> 00:55:13.906
It's, like, the ability to, to bring it back to this at the right times, right? And it, it's, it's, it's putting your, your narrative out there, um, so other people don't take it over.Yeah.

343
00:55:14.586 --> 00:55:24.006
I, I guess I haven't thought about it in that way. But, um, yeah, I mean, I think what I'm trying to figure out in general is

344
00:55:25.086 --> 00:55:33.826
I know that I'm good at telling stories 'cause I've made a career out of it from, from a writing standpoint, but writing a magazine story is not making a YouTube video.

345
00:55:33.886 --> 00:55:47.856
I think that there's a lot of parallels and similarities to it, um, but the way that I think about writing a lead for a magazine story, you know, the first few paragraphs to try to hook a reader, is very different than the way that people engage with YouTube videos today.

346
00:55:47.856 --> 00:56:02.006
And I think it's really important to meet people where they're at. Like, I try not to be precious about, like, the way that I write a sentence sometimes. Like- Yeah...

347
00:56:02.086 --> 00:56:13.446
I'm, whenever I, like, work with an editor, the thing that I care the most about is, like, making sure that the big picture is, ultimately lands as best as it humanly can.

348
00:56:13.606 --> 00:56:24.366
And I know that sometimes I will write s- sentences that are too meandering or, uh, I have a tendency to repeat myself a lot, um- Same... especially in the first drafts of my writing.

349
00:56:24.406 --> 00:56:35.086
So, like, if an editor's like, "You should cut these three words," I, like, I don't really care. [laughs] 'Cause it's like, if it, if it reads well and the thing lands at the end, that's what's most important to me.

350
00:56:35.206 --> 00:56:42.956
Um, you know, I, there, there are moments where I'll, like, stick to my guns, where I think, like, the structure of this needs to be in this way so it lands in this way.

351
00:56:43.046 --> 00:56:45.746
Um, and I've had back and forth with editors about that. But

352
00:56:46.646 --> 00:56:56.586
when I think about, like, okay, I need to make a, at the minimum, a 30-second intro or a, a five-second hook for a TikTok, like, I think that's just meeting people at the format. Yeah. You know?

353
00:56:56.666 --> 00:57:02.576
Like, there, there are certain formats that work in, in television. Mm-hmm. And there are certain formats that work in movies, and

354
00:57:03.706 --> 00:57:11.646
I think the way to get people interested in that, do artistic stuff working off of that, is by subverting expectations. And so you have to become a master of- Yeah...

355
00:57:11.706 --> 00:57:19.196
all of the rules in order to do something different eventually. Yeah. And so I think the phase that I'm in right now is just learning the rules. And- Yeah...

356
00:57:19.196 --> 00:57:23.686
eventually, I think there's gonna come a day where I wanna try to take some creative liberties and do something different.

357
00:57:24.166 --> 00:57:32.006
I don't think I'm there yet, because I don't think I've mastered, like, what I need to do in order to hook YouTube viewers, um, on a consistent basis. And so,

358
00:57:32.966 --> 00:57:45.246
um, I don't think it's necessarily about, like, fully compromising your vision. I think it's important to have that [laughs] message discipline, as you said- [laughs]... to, like, uh, to know what your point of view is.

359
00:57:45.646 --> 00:57:54.586
Mm-hmm. But what I am not precious about is, like, is, is trying to meet people where they're at.

360
00:57:54.826 --> 00:58:10.746
Because ultimately, like, the only way you can make impact and change, um, and get people to be more informed on how things work in the world, is by giving it to them in a format that they feel like is accessible. And

361
00:58:12.146 --> 00:58:22.186
I think it's much more important to, like, create something that's accessible that a lot of people will watch, um, that has a similar impact than doing, like, the most avant-garde version of that.

362
00:58:22.226 --> 00:58:33.096
Like, there's a reason I didn't end up going into, like, you know, film school to do, like, you know, 90-minute movies that's, you know, or played at the Whitney Museum of someone sitting in a chair, you know- Mm-hmm...

363
00:58:33.196 --> 00:58:36.306
to make some sort of point. Um, so

364
00:58:37.826 --> 00:58:48.346
that's just, like, I, I think that it's important and I, I think what's happening on YouTube right now is, like, the conventions of the platform and what it takes to do well on YouTube are starting to cement.

365
00:58:48.386 --> 00:58:55.966
And it's not any different than, like, the inverted pyramid in writing like- Mm... an AP style news story. Like, I don't think it's any different.

366
00:58:55.995 --> 00:59:06.306
And so it's like, okay, how do I learn to become the best version of this? And then once I do that, I feel like I can really figure out what my voice is from a creative standpoint. I think we end it right there.

367
00:59:06.386 --> 00:59:16.646
That's perfect. I could not agree more. Don't be precious about the writing. Be precious about getting the message across in the format that reaches the audience. Yeah. Cool. Thank you for coming on, Jun.

368
00:59:16.806 --> 00:59:20.746
Uh, well, [laughs] this was a great conversation. Uh, listener, we'll see you next week.

369
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[outro music] If you're looking for an episode similar to the one you've just watched, this episode here with Kofie is the one for you.

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He's also a sports-focused YouTuber with 115,000 subscribers and has some great advice for repurposing long-form content to work on all platforms. [outro music]