Brian: with Offball, you don't want to get into original reporting.
It's, this is not it.
It's, it's about smart curation.
Adam: yeah.
And it's also, we're not going to cover anything controversial or negative.
because we're not, journalism, we're entertainment.
We're a fun place to come and see all the cool things that you want to read about.
it's meant to be a lean back experience.
Brian: Okay.
So no politics.
Adam: no.
there's a place for that.
you remember that feeling we told you about when you go to Twitter and you feel terrible after, like, I would like to build something that when you go to it, you actually feel good after it was fun.
It was
enjoyable.
Brian: So why, Why do you use humans?
Why don't you use robots?
It sounds like a job for
Adam: That's not you.
Did you?
I mean, I, I, I mean,
Brian: Is that a
Adam: that's the easiest question ever.
I, I still have yet to see a robot have taste
Brian: Welcome to The Rebooting Show.
I'm Brian Morrissey.
I can fall into a trap sometimes of gravitating to the parts of the media business that are in retreat.
And, and let's be real, many parts of it are in retreat.
but I think that sometimes obscures the fact that the media business overall is growing.
only that growth is often shifting to different places with different models.
the economic value of the news business, for instance, is shifting, but I can't think of a time when there was more news content.
if only the most.
Profitable parts tend to be outside of news reporting.
there are plenty of podcasts with great businesses downstream of news reporting.
the sports media industry is to me fascinating because it is going through a similar reorientation.
Sports media has never.
Been in more demand and there's never been more of it.
I think back to when I was a sports obsessed kid in the 1980s and the sheer volume and variety of sports content now is shocking.
I can get dozens of podcasts on the Eagles alone.
I mean, I can watch experts break down specific plays and explain why they worked or why they didn't work.
I mean, teams themselves have media arms that pump out an amazing amount of content and hard knocks takes you inside the media arms.
Discussions that the teams have.
I mean, I can hear John Mara's dread at losing Saquon Barkley to the Eagles.
Athletes themselves are media entities and the sports media business overall has broken out from being a category itself to being one that, that stretches across many different categories, business, culture, music, fashion.
and I think in the atomization of everything.
Sports is something of a last bastion.
it even acts as a unifier, really.
I mean, I spent the weekend in the Philadelphia area, and as a battleground state, you are subjected to endless political ads.
Billboards along the Pennsylvania turnpike, I noticed, tend to alternate between Trump and Harris.
I mean, it's inescapable.
I mean, I really pity those of you in those seven states, but I'll tell you this.
I mean, all that falls away when it comes to the Eagles.
And that is why I think why sports is so valued right now.
I mean, they're one of the last unifying and shared experiences we have left.
So we've all retreated into some digital ghettos to experience customized realities.
I can't see how AI doesn't make that worse.
So this week I spoke with Adam Mendelsohn, who has for a long time operated at this nexus between sports, media, business, and culture.
I mean, Adam is a long time advisor to LeBron James and LeBron's business partner, Maverick Carter.
Adam is a communications advisor to many athletes and many companies.
and he's recently, Rolled out his own sports platform called off ball.
and it's something of a throwback to a pre algorithmic era when the drudge report and other curators reign supreme instead of algorithms.
And I'm a big believer in things moving in a pendulum, we tend to have, you know, overreactions.
And then we course correct.
And, momentum keeps going forward.
But I think we're in store for a recalibration right now.
Is the downsides of this kind of algorithmic dominance are acutely felt.
and I think Adam has a really good viewpoint on that because of his background.
So we discussed the changes to the sports media landscape, including why LeBron's widely panned, show the decision.
was actually ahead of its time, I go into my own little mini rant about why sports betting was a major mistake.
It's my most deeply held boomer position.
Hope you enjoyed this conversation, and also please leave this podcast a rating or review, wherever you get it.
Always helps.
and I'd also love to hear feedback on the type of guests that you enjoy hearing from the most.
my current inclination Is the focus more on what's working in the media business versus having people discuss the stuff that's wrong.
that can become a bit of a drag.
Anyway, here's my conversation with Adam.
Adam, thank you so much for, for joining, joining me.
I, I'm told.
Adam: Thank you for having
Brian: by, I'm told by sources, this is your first ever podcast.
Adam: you.
This is my first podcast.
I, I, I've deliberately tried to be, uh, behind the scenes my whole career.
And so, yeah, this is my first podcast, but it's also, you know, I, launching something.
I felt like I didn't want to go out and talk to a lot of people, but I wanted to talk to a few people.
And so I'm, I'm excited to be on with you.
Brian: Oh, okay, good.
Well, I was, I thought you were going to be like, but they weren't available.
That old joke.
Adam: No, no, no.
No, like, you know, like again, this is when you're, when you're doing something, you know, you realize you and I, look, you and I have known each other a long time, you realize there's, and this gets to actually the sort of conversation we're gonna have.
Like there's just media now that reaches a certain constituency.
And I think when you.
And as someone who spent his career working on communications and how people reach different audiences, I think a lot of now, a lot now about how different people reach different.
I mean, your newsletter this morning was exactly that point.
It was, it was about how, you know, the all in podcast or Lex Friedman are creating new models of, of media.
And I think that's, that is a hundred percent where I think it is.
And I think that's true for you and the rebooting.
I think that you know, when I think about what we built, I think about your audience a lot.
Brian: Yeah.
All right.
Cool.
Well, first of all, I think there's a lot of people who know you, who, who listened to this podcast, but some people don't and they should, I don't know.
I was joking with you before, like I consider you an operative, right?
So you got your start in politics,
Adam: Operator or operator or operative?
Brian: No, now you're an operator, but I think of you as like an operator.
You're a behind the scenes guy.
Adam: yeah, I mean, look,
Brian: do you describe what you do when you go to like, you know, dinner party?
Because you advise LeBron and, and, and Rich Paul, and you've got, you've popped up on ESPN stories.
I always like sometimes I'm like, Oh my God, there's Adam.
Adam: yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, look, I, I think about myself as a media and communications professional.
I think that, you know, the long story is I, I started my career in politics.
my last political jobs with Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was governor.
and I, you know, I, I thought I wanted to be Toby Ziegler.
I thought I wanted to be like, you know, the white house communications director.
and then when I got into politics, I realized that I didn't I didn't like politics.
I, I found it to be, you know, Well, I guess what, what everybody's seeing now, I, I sort of found politics to be, many years ago.
And so after working for Arnold, Arnold was incredible.
And he exposed me to entertainment and culture and business.
And I realized I wanted to do media and communications, but I wanted to do it in, in culture and business, not in politics.
So I really started at that point, figuring out what that looks like.
And then, by the grace of God, LeBron James famously had the decision, and.
After the decision, he was trying to think about a
Brian: Wait, did you do the decision?
Adam: how I came in after
Brian: Okay.
Adam: he was, you know, he was, he was thinking about how to, he was thinking about meeting communications different as LeBron is apt to do.
LeBron thinks about everything different, and his, I got introduced to LeBron by Paul Wachter.
who's his long time partner and, and has done all of his business deals.
Paul introduced me to Maverick Carter and, built a relationship with them and, and have been with LeBron ever since.
So was with him for 12, I've been with him 12 years, and worked with him and Maverick on a number of different things.
And then, so while I've been working with him, I was, I was doing a bunch of advisory work, working with CEOs.
This is sort of the internet, I guess, 2.
0 era, the kind of Uber, Airbnb, rise of consumer internet.
was doing a lot of work in that space and then, went to TPG, the global private equity company, and at TPG was doing their communications, but more importantly, sort of worked as an operating partner in across their portfolio.
So where there were companies that were having particular communications challenges.
I would drop in and work with them and, and work with the management teams and work with the CEOs and with the head of communications on, on strategies.
And, and that through that, I realized that's what I really loved doing was working with management teams on communications and media, and then started my own company.
So I have a company called Upland workshop started in 2020, started March of 2020.
The first day I, first day I paid myself was, March 1st, 2020.
and that's what we do.
We have a, it's a small advisory business.
and we work with a number of different companies on, and getting back to your original question on their media and communications.
And that, I think the, the most interesting thing is, well, what does that mean?
Right.
What is, what is PR now?
What is communications now?
How are people thinking about it?
And I, I spent all my time thinking about that and working in that space.
Brian: Yeah, so give me your theory of the case because I mean, you have been entwined in, in these worlds of government, sports, media, but, but, you know, media is the nexus.
And like you said, like I wrote today about all in and acquired and how media is not dying.
It is changing and the power is shifting in my view in most areas from a lot of packaged media to a lot of, individuals, for instance, and this is not new.
I think.
It's funny because I asked you about the decision, and for those, some people probably don't even remember the decision.
Adam: No, probably not.
Probably
Brian: but it was, it was a live show that LeBron James did to announce, where he, he ended up going to, taking his talents to South Beach, famously.
and it got completely panned, right?
Because at the time this was very strange.
And if you think about it now, that's going direct.
I mean, that, this
Adam: yeah, yeah.
Brian: is like a no.
brainer.
It's not a strange thing.
what you want to control your narrative.
Adam: well, yeah, I mean, sometimes it's control your narrative.
Sometimes it's just a better way to do it.
I mean, I, I, I'm not a fan of like, I'm doing it because it controls my narrative.
I'm, I'm a fan of doing it because it's a better way to reach it.
But, but yeah, sometimes, but to your
Brian: But what is your theory of the case about how media is, is changing and
Adam: well, my theory,
Brian: into what Offball
Adam: sure.
My theory is that there's two things that really matter to an individual, to a company, to an organization.
And there is customer acquisition.
There is, I need you to buy more of my product.
And then there is your corporate narrative or your positioning or your reputation.
And that is, this is who I am.
This is why I matter.
This is why you should pay attention to me.
This is why.
You should invest in me.
This is why you should think about me.
And I think that the world as more and more media as media gets more and more bifurcated and more and more niche, how you manage sort of the difference between customer awareness, customer acquisition, and your narrative and your positioning becomes more and more complicated.
And that's how you have to think about media and communications.
Brian: Okay.
So how, how does that intersect with, with sports, right?
So cause sports and let's just zero into sports because, you know, sports is, is obviously it's, it's been the linchpin of media, but now I think it's been, it's more powerful than ever with its intersections with, with business, with culture.
You know what I mean?
I think about, you know, this is, this is pretty old, but I can remember, you know, when the, the walk to the locker room.
became sort of the run, the runway.
You know, I, I mean, I remember when, when, you know, David Stern was fining the players for, for, for dressing like slobs, like in his view.
that's totally different now.
There's no need to fine people for not looking really good in the NBA.
Adam: No, no.
look, I think there's so many reasons.
Why sports has become so ubiquitous and so important.
And, you know, and I think that everyone is probably had this conversation over a drink, but it's, you know, I, I think sports is now, and, and, and athletes are now what celebrity and music was in a, in a generation before.
And I think that part of it is athletes have really asserted themselves as cultural figures.
I mean, I think LeBron has been one of the leaders in that.
It's basically saying, look, I'm not, I mean, he famously said, shut up, you know, I'm not going to shut up and dribble.
Like they're more than just going out and playing basketball and then going home.
Like they are, they are in front of everything.
So I think they've made themselves more culturally relevant.
I think the demand, the people love sports, you know, at a level that is far bigger, the leagues have gotten much sexier in terms of how they present.
And.
F1 Miami and Super Bowl.
And, and then, you know, not to mention it's, it sports is sort of the last place where everyone gathers together, like in a world of streaming and a world of, there's no more appointment television, like you get together for the U S open final, you go together to F1 Miami.
So sports as a platform is, you know, incredibly dynamic to advertisers in ways that I think, Very few other things can be right now.
And you're seeing it.
Brian: Yeah.
And I think also, you know, look, there's, I think particularly like in the NBA, I mean, there's, there's usually a player in one generation who defines it, right?
It was Michael Jordan before and, and I think it's obviously it's been LeBron and I think, you know, LeBron.
It seems like he was, he was from the very beginning, very business oriented with Maverick Carter, and building his own business, whereas before it was, you know, endorsements and, and whatnot.
And I think that's a major change because I, when you look at a lot of the top players now, they almost all have like media entities, right?
Adam: yeah, I mean, look, I think that, first of all, LeBron is, the smartest, most thoughtful, sophisticated person I've, I've been around.
I mean, Schwarzenegger was as well.
I mean, I've had the privilege of being around both and these are, like you say, he came in as a businessman.
Like LeBron was, LeBron has always been very serious about his business, what he does.
His, his profession, his basketball.
there's a reason he's playing this long at this level.
It's just, he's just, he's, I'm in awe of him all the time and his work ethic and what he does.
So when you say he's been serious about his business, yes, he's been serious about his business.
he was one of the first athletes to go out and create a production company.
He was one of the first athletes to, you know, to wear hot couture down the runway.
Like he's been the first.
In a lot of things and been very influential.
It has led to more and more athletes thinking about the businesses they want to build while they're playing.
I think one of the big innovations LeBron had was he was like, there were athletes who were doing this sort of thing, like when they retired.
LeBron was one of the people that was like, I'm going to do this while I'm playing.
and so that's changed a lot, not to belabor this, but getting back to the decision, you know, as you said, for the people who don't know, the decision was when LeBron famously, you know, declared that he was going to Miami on live TV and everybody went crazy because it was sort of like, how dare he do this?
How dare he have a show?
Where he announces it that's now, it's, it's not, that's not a big deal.
And I I always told him that even from day one back then, that I thought it was visionary.
I was like, well, this is where the world is going, but people just weren't ready for it.
But he broke that down.
And now, you know, high school kids are doing it to announce where they go to, where they're going to go to college.
So LeBron is, I mean, again, I can't, I can't say enough about his impact on sports and, and me personally.
Brian: Yeah.
But do you think cause obviously a lot of other players followed a similar past, right?
You know, being investors, starting their own like production companies, media companies.
Is this overall, cause I mean, you're going in a very different direction with Offball, right?
it's very personality driven.
There's a lot of leverage that comes with celebrity, obviously.
I end up wondering, usually these trends are overdone, right?
I mean, is this one of those things where.
There's going to be a lot of athlete driven media entities that, do not actually go very far.
Adam: I mean, look, this will get into off ball.
Like I, to me, everything is the, and I learned this at TPG to me, everything's the business model.
You know, I think that it depends on the athlete, it depends on the opportunity they have, it depends on the creativity of pursuing that, I think the idea that, and by the way, production company is a vague concept, right?
If I'm, if I'm a big athlete, if I'm Victor Wimbiyama, And I want to start a production company and I just produce my commercials, my videos, my movies, then that's a production company.
If I'm Victor Wim Benyama and I want to, I want to start a production company that covers every single, You know, new young player coming out of Europe.
I'm going to raise money.
I'm going to hire an operating team.
And then that's a different thing.
Like it, so I'm still very bullish on the opportunity for athletes to build their businesses.
Well, a hundred percent, there's a million and it's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
The issues, how they build it, how they structure it and how they think about the, the, the scaling of it, but they have, they have all the influence in the world.
Right.
And, and to your point, like you might say, Oh, are we, are we past, you know, all these beauty brands that were started by, you know, famous young women like Kendall Jenner?
Like, are we over that?
No, there's always going to be people who want to buy beauty brands from global icons.
It's just how you do it.
Brian: Yeah.
I mean, you can build your own distribution when you have, when you have that kind of celebrity and, and look, you see what the, the, the Manning, the Mannings have done, what the Kelsey's are now,
Adam: A
Brian: doing.
And so that's, it's, it's pretty powerful.
so talk to me about, about Offball.
I mean, we talked about it a little, I think, you know, several months ago when you were sort of getting, you know, planning this out.
but what, what was the inspiration for it?
What did you see missing in a very crowded sports media landscape?
Adam: you know, I saw two things I felt like the appetite, there was so much great.
content and stories and narratives about sports culture.
put aside, like it's just, it's so compelling, right?
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey and Lewis Hamilton and LeBron James and All these characters and they're starting companies and, and people love it.
And then you have, you know, you looked at the NBC, the Olympics, you know, and you looked at how the influencers were covering, it's just, it is such an incredible space and, and the, and the best content is just sort of everywhere.
It's on Tik TOK, it's on Instagram, it's stories, it's podcasts, it's YouTube.
It just was everywhere.
And there's so much of it.
so discovery became something really interesting to me.
And then the flip side is the, area is so popular.
When you go to social, the experience I was finding.
And when I was talking to friends was, was becoming more and more problematic.
It was negative.
A lot of toxic stuff, you know, as we all know, the internet, the internet regresses to, what's controversial, what's, you know, negative.
And I just found that there were so many people that were enjoying this content.
And then the discovery experience was so broken.
Was there a different way to think about it?
And I was particularly fixated on aggregation.
Aggregation is, really problematic in sports, media.
and by aggregation, cause people will look at off ball and say, Oh, that's an aggregation site.
And I'm always quick to say, no, it's a curation site.
And we can talk about curation in a minute.
Aggregation, and it's very problematic in, in sports media is, you know, Bill Simmons goes on a podcast and says X, Y, and Z, and then a whole slew of, of internet sites or social media sites.
Take what he says, chops it up into the most controversial way possible, and then floods the internet with it.
So as a consumer, you're sitting there and you're just overwhelmed by.
The aggregators and not really seeing what, what did Bill Simmons actually say?
Did I get the context?
Did I understand what's happening?
And as someone who's on the other end of it, working with companies and brands and athletes, I was constantly like, well, this isn't what he said.
This is wrong.
This is misleading.
And it just felt, it felt broken.
And I was like, well, what would it look like if you tried to fix it?
and that was sort of the genesis of off ball
Brian: yeah.
I mean, it's a little bit of a throwback.
I mean, I don't mean in a bad way, right?
Because I think that things are changing a lot.
I think we've reached peak algorithmic feed and You know, I think that's highlighted by my addiction to Twitter Because I go on
Adam: I mean, you know, this as
Brian: It's like eating a big but it's like eating a big like tub of Popcorn, I've never felt good afterwards
Adam: Never.
I have the same problem.
like, I'll be watching a football game and I'm terrible at picking up and going on Twitter and every time I do it, my head hurts, I feel, to your point, I feel like, I, I feel like I ate something I shouldn't have ate, it's just terrible.
Brian: yeah, I went the old Twitter of you know, people talking about the game and next thing I know I'm, I'm here and they're eating the cats.
Adam: Well, I think, I think we're, I think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
But, and that was the other reason not to, I, not to sound like I really, the thing about off ball that I'm feel great about and we'll, you know, we'll see ultimately what happens is I feel like we to create something.
Michaela Hammond is, my co founder and she's amazing.
She, we've worked together.
Her sister plays for angel city.
Her name, her sister's Madison Hammond, and she's been amazing.
And she's an incredible co founder and she's so tapped into women's sports and culture.
she really is, a bigger part of off ball than myself, but, I feel like we're at least giving people something to look at and say, Hey, maybe, maybe there's a different way to do it.
And maybe that's overly optimistic, but I think we have to start finding different options.
Brian: Yeah, but this is not like, it's not algorithmic.
There's no AI, there's not an AI wrinkle, which is how I know you didn't raise any money for it.
Adam: We've raised almost no money.
That's, I mean, the business model is another thing, but there is.
it's crazy.
There's four kids.
They're amazing.
Young, young people shouldn't say kids, young people.
they all came out of sort of sports journal and their business insider and TMZ sports, and they're literally just going around the internet all day, every day, finding stuff and then bringing it to the homepage and to the newsletter and curating it and putting some personality around it.
It is.
And the other thing that's really important is it links.
This is why it was so hard to raise money.
Cause every time I told people I was doing it, they were like, well, that's not going to work.
It links directly to the, it links directly to the source, right?
So if we have a Bloomberg article on, on the homepage, it takes you straight to Bloomberg and then the paywall comes up, right?
The journal.
So people are like, well, you're taking people straight to a paywall.
Brian: yet.
No, you want to use AI to scrape the content and then,
and then put it on your own site.
Adam: Yeah.
And I was like, but that's bullshit.
Like I, I, my, first of all, I think people are accustomed to going through their stuff and hitting a paywall.
I think that's a, that is a consumer experience.
We all understand.
I don't think it's, I think there's ways to do it that are not, you know, genuinely problematic and at the same time, like, you know, Okay, if I find myself going to Brian Morrissey's thing four times in a row, I'm going to subscribe to Brian Morrissey's thing.
Like that's, that's how this is supposed to work.
It's not supposed to work.
That bots scrape my work, throw it up on the internet.
And then, and then all that time and energy I put into it is, is going to people in the, for free and the wrong way.
Brian: Yeah.
So that is the curation versus aggregation thing.
Cause it used to drive me nuts.
my last company, when business insider would.
aggregate our story, take one juicy quote out of it, maybe do a slideshow or something, bank 5x the page views we would, because they had bigger distribution, and it took them, well, I don't know, 10 minutes, and it took us 10 hours, and I'm like, that this, this is misaligned incentives.
I used to say to, to, to Henry, and he would say that,
oh, you're just an events company with a website.
Adam: I think what's going to happen is, You know, and this gets to why off ball, you know, I mean, you know, I've been involved in Park and a couple other of these, I think that, and you spend more time thinking about this than anybody.
Although I will tell you, I read, I read your wife maybe more religiously than I read, you and I think your wife,
the, what your wife covers, and you might want to explain it.
Is actually more off balls.
Inspiration, I think comes more from your wife's outlook and what she talks about than you and don't, I hope you don't take that the right, the wrong way.
But,
Brian: at all, not at all.
Adam: do you want to explain to people what your wife writes about?
Is
Brian: No.
So, my wife's actually been on this podcast.
Her name is Anna Angelic and she is a brand executive.
She was most recently the chief brand officer at a spree.
She'd been the chief brand officer, at Banana Republic.
and she really writes about modern, modern luxury.
and she is, That is like incredibly popular.
It's more popular than my newsletter, which I'm very good about.
anyway, it's, called the sociology of business.
She has a new book coming out called hit makers.
that's my little commercial.
and she's great at it cause she understands she's, she's very, rigorous, you know, she has a doctorate and she is very rigorous about how she views, you know, the changing, modes of like luxury and culture, the intersections.
Adam: what she really influences my thinking around and helps me think a lot about is, is The importance of brand as an emotional product and, and what it means for brand to operate at a deeper level, what it means to think about audience.
Like she just, I find her.
I know it's primarily about luxury, but I think it's true for any company.
Her writing is applicable to any company where they are, they're focused on building a brand.
They're not focused on just, you know, my hamburger is 1 and your hamburger is a dollar 50, where it's like, you're, you're trying to build something that stands for something.
And she's,
Brian: I mean, it's the only way you get, you get, you get leverage, right?
I mean, everything, particularly the internet is the great commoditizer of our time, right?
And it is, you know, the, the old Jeff Bezos, your margin is my opportunity.
If you look at what, technology has done, To, to many industries, but I think this is just overall is it is eliminated a lot of those, competitive advantages that a lot of traditional brands, whether they're media or otherwise, have, you know, subsisted on.
And so, you know, I think the changing natures of what is considered luxury is amazing.
Like I, I, I, so I think it's a fascinating topic, but so how does that Inform like what you're doing with all
Adam: well, okay.
So, so the, the first half of it was, all right, well, what's missing?
What, what, oh, and by the way, I should mention one last thing about off ball.
it is, the term I'm using is unapologetically optimistic.
and what I mean by that is again, you know, sports internet tends to be inherently negative and toxic.
and I think that people
want to
Brian: it.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Adam: Well, I mean, look, I, I shouldn't say inherently, I should say there's a lot of toxicity or there's a lot of negativity around sports internet.
I mean, if you ask people about like, NBA Twitter.
Like, you know, if LeBron, I mean, I'm, I'm very closest.
I can tell you 90 percent of the things when LeBron does something there becomes a negative conversation online about it.
Cause it's just sort of what ends up
Brian: Okay.
Well, yeah, that's that's and I think, by the way, also, I think gambling has made that far worse.
I mean, I feel that I mean, the players are getting like, you know, if not death threats close to death threats just by this.
I'm not into the gambling thing.
I think it was a major mistake, but that's me.
Okay.
Adam: I understand again.
I think that I love it.
I love my fantasy.
I love texting my friends.
I love, I love it.
but I'm not a, you know, I'm not a gambling addict.
I don't, I don't like, I'm not, I'm not sitting there getting angry because this player didn't hit the over because I got 9, 000 on it.
I just,
Brian: right.
That's what I mean.
It's perfectly fine.
I'm sure you're not a degenerate gambler or something, but there are a lot of people and look, sports is at its best.
It's a great emotional release and stuff.
I grew up a Philadelphia sports fan as many, and I still am as many people
Adam: you know, Joellen, Joellen beads, my client, we want to, you want to get into some Sixers
basketball.
I
Brian: I
would love to have Joel on, on the podcast sometime.
but okay,
Adam: think, I mean, he'll talk about the Sixers.
I don't think he's deep on like ad tech, but we can try.
Brian: Oh, that's fine.
We can talk header bidding.
We can talk, whatever.
but, you know, look, I grew up a Philadelphia sports fan.
I went to the Eagles games in the 700 level.
I know, I know how the emotions of sports can go in bad directions.
Okay.
And I think, I think that can, I think that feeds over is it's the, all the strengths are usually your weakness.
And I think the passion for sports.
Combined with the algorithmic incentives for conflict can lead to, like what you're saying, that kind of toxicity.
so I think, I think we're seeing a lot of media that is being created that is purposefully, I don't want to say, enthusiastic or optimistic about the areas that they're covering.
And I think it, it, it's, it's an interesting trend.
I mean, I talked about this in, my newsletter today because, you know, look, the knock from a lot of the capital J journalists of, you know, an all in or even an acquired is, Oh, it's just a bunch of softball interviews.
Musk, it's a safe space for billionaires.
And, And look, there's lots of different ways to do things.
The adversarial journalism has an important role in our society and in our media ecosystem, but it's not the only thing.
Adam: Yeah.
I mean, I, I agree with that 1000%.
and I could go on, we could have a very long conversation about sort of the role of journalism.
Because I, I do spend, I still spend, I've spent my whole career working with journalists and I still spend a lot of my time working with journalists and I have very, I believe journalism is critical, right?
So sticking with the Elon example, like I, you're right, All In is a place for Elon to go have a conversation.
That's really important.
I also think that there should be more respect and more time spent answering questions from the New York Times, answering questions from the Wall Street Journal, it doesn't, it's not an either or, like I, like I said earlier, like, when we started the Spring Hill Company, which is LeBron's company, we started with this thing called uninterrupted, which was like athletes were going direct.
They were filming themselves on videos.
And, and a lot of people went into like, Oh, this is just so that they can work around the journalism.
This is so they can.
NBA journalists will tell you LeBron is one of the most accessible.
I mean, he doesn't do a lot of interviews as much anymore, but in the locker room, he's always talking to the media.
He's always engaging them.
People, it's not an either or thing.
You need to do both.
There's a role for sports journalism.
There's an important thing LeBron has to do with them to help them do their job, but also to help them cover it.
And then there's equally an opportunity for LeBron to go do a show like The Shop and talk to his friends about the stuff he wants to talk to them about.
Like, it's
Brian: but even like even You know, I go back to like what he did with J.
J.
Reddick for, for J.
J.
Reddick
became the Lakers coach.
Yeah.
I mean, that is a completely different form of media.
I'm sorry.
I don't care who the journalist is.
You know, they're not going to have the same level of conversation and that's not going to be forever.
And that went real deep.
I mean, that's like, you know, the header bidding of NBA and it's not going to be for everyone.
But that is a totally different thing than.
The, you know, the, if it bleeds, it leads, you know, the controversies that, you know, talk radio is obsessed with.
And everyone has to get their quotes and, and do their job.
It's not like an either or, cause I like both.
Adam: Right.
And I, I think where people have a point.
Is when you start using these sort of alternative, you know, whether it's the all in podcast and you start to say, well, that's the only version of communications I'm going to do.
And therefore, I'm not going to talk to journalists.
I'm not going to answer questions about, you know, this, this, and this, and this you have to.
And I think we, I am concerned about this.
I don't think people truly appreciate the importance of, Journalism.
And I'm not, I'm not trying to sound precious about it.
Like it's, it is really important that there's a vibrant journalism.
Like the, the breakdown in local news is a real issue.
and where this is heading in the wrong direction is when people say, well, I'm not going to go talk to these journalists because I'm just going to go do this podcast.
People have confused
it from what you and I are saying.
Brian: yeah, I think particularly in like politics and those areas, and I think it's, we see it with the presidential candidates.
I, you know, I think it's really interesting to, to listen to, to Trump, talking to Theo Vaughn versus, you know, Trump again, shouting back and forth with Jake Tapper, I think that there's, there's room for both.
I appreciate, at least that, that he does both.
Right?
I don't think that doing no, adversarial interviews is really good for a presidential candidate, no matter what their positions are.
I just don't think it's good.
but I think that you find out different measures of a person and that is normal.
we want to know who people are,
right?
And a lot of times that happens through conversation.
Hmm.
Adam: and look, I mean, since we're on the topic, I think that executives have a responsibility to participate in journalism.
And I think journalists have a responsibility to do their job in a way that is also highly ethical and, based on sort of objective truth.
I think that again, I'm around this all the time and I have this conversation with so many of my friends that are.
from journalism, I've had this conversation with people who started journalism companies.
but I think there's a problem happening right now where you have communications people who are like, well, we don't need to talk to them, we'll just go on these podcasts.
And you have journalists saying, well, they're not going to talk to us.
So we're just going to call them with four minutes to go and say, we need an answer right now.
Or we're going to build an entire story off of anonymous sourcing, questionable anonymous sourcing.
Like there are.
the dynamic between how we think about ethically, how journalists and comms people work together, not together as friends, but together as people who are committed to this work, this being done the right way, like both sides are breaking down.
And it's, it's, it's very problematic.
And I, and, and I don't blame either one.
I just think we have to start to sort of try to get back to a place.
Like when I came up prior to social media and all that, like when you work with journalists, there was, there were things that you, you were operating by a different set of rules, right?
Like if a journalist came to you with something and they had gotten it and they gave me a day to come back to them with a response, they also didn't have to worry that I was going to go give it to a friendlier journalist.
Cause I was going to go front running.
Right.
Brian: Well, they're going to front run it on Twitter now.
I mean, that's, that's
the,
Adam: Yeah.
Brian: and it creates bad incentives like on both sides, right?
It's
like, when you get burned by that as like a journalist, you're like, not again,
never again.
You get once.
Adam: you don't lie to them, right?
I mean, there was just a whole, and again, not to sound like a crazy old man, but I mean, it is, that, that, that system was important, and, and I understand why comms people are like, well, I'm not going to talk to that reporter, and I understand why reporters are like, I'm not going to call that comms person, and that's not healthy.
Brian: Right.
So you're, you're not, with Offball, you don't want to get into original reporting.
It's, this is not it.
It's, it's about smart curation.
Adam: yeah.
And it's also, we're not going to cover anything controversial or negative.
Like the other day when Tyree kill was pulled over by the police, like really important story, really important story.
we didn't cover it because, and again, cover it as a bachelor.
We didn't, we didn't put it up on the homepage.
We don't cover anything.
because we're not, we're not journalism, we're not trying to be the athletic where people come and get the story, we're entertainment.
We're a fun place to come and see all the cool things that you want to read about.
We're meant to be, it's meant to be a lean back experience.
it's not meant to sort of like become a place where people inform themselves.
Brian: Okay.
So no politics.
Adam: No politics, no, no crime.
No, no.
I mean, it's just, there's a place for that.
there's plenty of places for it.
And, and, and I think that gets to sort of something that, I mean, to your point about as places get more niche and figure out their audience, like I, we want to do something where when you go to it, you remember that feeling we told you about when you go to Twitter and you feel terrible after, like, I would like to build something that when you go to it, you actually feel good after it was fun.
It was
enjoyable.
Brian: So why, Why do you use humans?
Why don't you use robots?
It sounds like a job for
Adam: That's not you.
Did you?
I mean, I, I, I mean,
Brian: Is that a
Adam: that's the easiest question ever.
I, I still have yet to see a robot have taste.
I don't know, I, I, it's not, look, I think there's a purpose and of course, there's gonna be all this incredible, I'm not like anti AI.
I just think, I just think when I'm thinking about what I want in my information diet, I would rather interesting people are helping me find fun stuff than some robot is jamming me with what it thinks I want in my algorithm.
I see my algorithm.
I don't want to see whatever the robot has decided.
I want to see, I don't want to see.
Brian: yeah, I just want to control the algorithm on, on X.
I mean, just because I like clicked on something one time, I, getting
flooded by it is,
is just, it's really bad.
I mean, I think I did one fight video.
I mean, come on.
It was a mistake.
I don't know.
It
was late at night, but I do not need to see people beating each other up non stop.
Adam: you click on I remember I clicked on I think this was the day I was like, okay I got it.
It has to be better.
I think I clicked on like one.
It was it was like the london It was like the show Travis Kelce was at with Taylor Swift, her London show.
And I clicked on maybe two of them.
And the entire feed for
Brian: same.
I mean him in that Gucci bucket hat.
I'm like, I don't need to see this again.
So I do think we are going to see a return of human curation because the need that and maybe I'm speaking to my own specific need is I actually still find.
X like incredibly vital to what I do with keeping on top of things.
But the problem is I have to wade through.
I feel like I'm in Shawshank Redemption, except there's no end.
you know, you don't remember that escape scene where I had to go through the sewer.
but he came out the other side.
I don't come out the other side.
That's my problem.
Adam: It's still essential.
I mean, X.
Me is like when you, when that period of time when Trump was almost assassinated and Joe Biden dropped out and I just, I couldn't.
And not to get into a long conversation about X, but this is really the most, the most It's interesting.
It's so interesting.
Like that, that, it's still so critical.
It's still so much a part of everybody's lives and it, you know, as a business, what it could be.
I mean, it's just, it's, you know, I mean, I dare you to come up with an example of something that is still as essential, but over index is so towards the opposite of what you would think about in terms of how it can become a really healthy, vibrant business.
Brian: Yeah, it is true.
That could, that could be a whole different episode.
So how are you going to make money off this ads?
Adam: Good question.
so two things.
One is.
I've learned that, everything, as I said earlier, everything starts with a business model, right?
So if I had raised 30 million and I was like, this is going to go become, you know, an 800 million company like this would, and actually it gets to an important point, which is the tension between.
The need to scale and the kind of consumer experience you can create in a business like this.
Like I, I continue to believe that the pressure to scale puts negative consequences on how you're thinking about your product and your consumer experience, longer conversation we can get into.
But, so when people go to, obviously it's, it's advertising, right?
We're never going to, we're never going to charge for the homepage.
because it's, you know, we're, we're, we're curating other people's work.
the thinking around it is, and I started this conversation by talking about the importance of reputation, the importance of narrative.
I think about, and this is, this is contrary to, how people think about building these businesses when you're raising money, but you know, your, what you talked about today, how the all in podcast is they're hosting a conference, they're, They are at the center of an idea and they're able to think about how to take that idea and think about business opportunities around it, right?
So we're looking at advertising, but when we think about advertising, it's not a consumer facing advertising strategy, right?
You're not, you know, hyper ice or I should say crypto.
com, did an ad on our site and crypto.
com.
we worked with them actually, because they're one of the leading sports marketers in, in the world.
Maybe the most right.
They have F1 Miami.
They have UFC.
They've got, they have the patch with the Philadelphia 76ers, your team.
So, they did an ad with us, which is about.
Like just them thinking about sports, how important sports are to them and what was appealing to them was the idea that they could work with us to reach a sports focused audience about the value of sports to them.
Totally bespoke.
You know, I don't know if they'll use the ad in other places, but they, they saw the, the opportunity with that.
So in many ways, the company is a little bit more of a creative studio than a publisher, not a little bit more, a lot more.
and we think about how do we create something and then give brands and people a place, if they have a story to tell relative to sports culture, that we can become a place that can work with them.
And then we're talking to a lot of creators now.
So that's one of the things I'm really excited about is, there's all these great creators that are out in sports and helping brands think about them again, not as a consumer facing enterprise, but more as a, you know, As a brand building enterprise or as a reputational enterprise.
So we're, we're in the early stages of, of really trying to understand what this can be as a business, but I will say the DNA is, is more as a brand studio or, as a, A community of advisors to a company versus a publisher that is sort of saying, okay, look, we're going to help you reach 1 million people at the CPM.
Cause that's not how we're designed.
Brian: So let me ask you guys, what is give me one area of the sports media business that you are sort of bullish on and give me one area that you are bearish on.
Adam: Oh
gosh.
That's a good question.
I continue to be very bullish on the ability to create, you know, the companies that are able to create the most compelling what we'll call shoulder programming.
I mean, if I said live rights, okay, no, Everyone knows live rights is everything.
But when you think about the Spring Hill company, or you think about Manning cast, or you think about some of the great work words and pictures are doing, who's run by Connor shell, who started 30 for 30, you know, Skydance has got this deal with the NFL.
I think that, you know, I think that there's more and more demand for.
The kind of programming that sits next to sports that's compelling and important again.
Everything to me is business model So it's going to be the people who are sort of figuring out how to think about that in a new way.
I was really Interested in how NBC covered the olympics and I thought You know, there was a lot of things happening with NBC and the Olympics that are really important.
You know, the, they were able to typically with the Olympics, you would have to wait for tape delay in order to put up stuff, but on this one, they were able to put stuff up on social in real time.
So the, the, the kind of impact NBC had by merging their social strategy with their live strategy was huge.
And, and then how they leveraged Snoop and how they leveraged Alex Earl and.
You know, I just, I really thought NBC did an incredible job of showing the world what, what sports coverage can be going forward.
what am I bullish on or
Brian: No, no, bearish.
We got to go.
We got to go to the bearish?
I
was like, the bullish is easy because this look, look, just to set this up, the reason I asked this is there's a ton of money going into sports right now for a bunch of different reasons we discussed.
Right.
And anytime there's a ton of money going into stuff, it's going to go into some areas that are.
You know, it's just like AI, right?
There's, of course, there's going to be a bunch of money incinerated.
I mean, this is a much smaller level, but what, what's, what's an area where you think, Hmm, I don't see that panning out.
Adam: I think the one area is that I think I'm a little more skeptical about, although I, I, I'm not a venture investor, so I don't.
say this just out of gut, there's a lot of like new leagues that are starting a lot of sort of like second dairy leagues, and I think some of them will
Brian: Is there, is there a wiffle ball league yet?
There must be multiple
Adam: there.
There probably is one in the, in the making.
so yeah, yeah, you, look, I think there's a lot of excitement around some leagues, you know, I think,
Brian: What about
Adam: like, you know, there's a, the sailing league I think is really interesting and it's backed by Larry Ellison.
I think there's opportunities around that.
I think the, the golf league that Tiger's doing could be interesting, but there's also many, many, many, many leagues.
There's a, there's a women's volleyball league that, that is, also I think compelling, I think women's volleyball is.
Really interesting as a, as a category.
but I, there's so many of these leagues starting and again, I'm not going to call one out that I'm bearish on, but I do think there's a lot of money going into these leagues and, and, and I'm not sure I, again, everything I keep, I say this all the time.
Like the business model is the business model is business model.
So maybe it will work.
Maybe it won't.
It just depends on whether people over raise and they, they make projections that are not realistic.
I've seen some of these decks and when you start to, when you start to see meteorite stills, when you see.
Leagues like putting media rights deals that are like big numbers in like year two and three.
You're a little bit like well ESPN
Brian: big numbers are always in the out years.
Adam: Yeah.
And that's the other thing to think about.
Like, you know, like these streamers, you know, I mean, as we saw in with an MBA rights, like that market is changing.
And so to think that these emerging leagues are going to have massive media rights deals is a little bit, because the money, the dollars are going to be there.
Brian: How about women's sports?
A ton, ton of, of heat around women's sports overall, right?
And, and there's a lot of compelling characters, particularly with Caitlin Clarke, and others.
I know you guys are, are, are clearly, you know, focusing in on that.
how big of an opportunity is this?
And what is catalyzing this now?
I mean, women's sports have been with us for a long, long time.
I
Adam: Yeah.
first of all, you know, I'll call out the co founder of Offball, Michaela Hammond, who's, you know, Been involved in women's sports for her whole career, her sister, like I said, but, you know, and also Alex Morgan, who just retired, just, you know, want to sort of acknowledge, and
I, I actually worked with Alex to start a company another sports company focused on women's sports called Together, the E is an X, started that with Alex Morgan and Sue Bird and a bunch of people, Jessica Robertson, what has been huge in that company are instrumental and growing it.
So I've done a lot in women's sports and I, I really like it and, and, I've spent a lot of time in it.
I'm really bullish about the core women's sports, WNBA, NWSL women's soccer more broadly.
I think volleyball has a huge opportunity.
I think there's a lot more growth in that.
there's a number of reasons why.
but I think the, the quality of those games are to a point now where people want to watch it.
The quality was always there before, you know, obviously, but the, you know, when I say quality, I mean, the production, the investment, the marketing, the, these leagues.
For them to thrive, they require an entire ecosystem around it.
Like the production has to be good.
The announcers have to be good.
The, the marketing has to be there.
Like it doesn't just happen.
And so you're seeing now the money go into the things that these leagues need in order to get the ratings that will then drive all the growth.
And so that to me is why I, I remain really high on it.
I think that, Unfortunately, I think it was so underserved for so long.
Like the, the amount of growth that is available is significant.
Brian: and, and, you know, look, the, the quality of play, at least in the WNBA is just far higher than it was.
I mean, maybe it's the same as, as, as the NBA, it just feels in,
Adam: Well, that's true for the NBA.
I mean, I, you know, I, although I'm going to get myself in trouble for, you know, I, all the
people that think it was better, it was better,
Brian: podcast.
Charles can come on the podcast too.
Adam: I, but yeah, and then, and then, you know, the, the, the characters, I, I'm just a big believer.
Like I'm, I.
I always talk about like sports at its core is, WWE, right?
It's, it's heroes and
Brian: Angel Reese versus Caitlin Clarke.
it's great.
I
Adam: it's just,
it's like,
the character, right?
it's like you get bought up in the characters and like, and again, that's.
A plug for Offball.
Like that's what we want to be.
We want to help you follow all the characters and the storylines and the, and the husbands and the boyfriends and the girlfriends.
Like, it's just, it's all fun.
Brian: Yeah.
this is now like, I mean, I guess like in the, in the, you know, we're getting the sort of, what were they called?
Like wags, women and girlfriends.
I guess there'll be the flip side of that too.
Our, our wives and girlfriends.
Adam: by the way, real quick, The other thing that I love, which is just so interesting and a, and a space we're trying to be really thoughtful about is, The interest amongst Americans in European sports, most notably F1 and, football, European football, soccer.
so, there is more and more and more people, soccer in particular, which I really like, you know, and the World Cup's coming here, but, I think about Off Ball as a, as a way for people to follow the storylines around F1 and, and soccer that are, you know, You know, just, just the right amount for an American who's really interested in it, right?
if you were a Brit and you were trying to follow the NBA, you don't, you don't, you wouldn't follow it the way Bill Simmons follows it.
You would follow it in a little bit more of a way, like, you know, there's only so much of time and energy you would have.
So I think about how much people love soccer and, and F1 and, and can we be a gateway drug?
to those sports for, Euro curious fans.
I
Brian: that.
You know, when I go visit my in laws like in Belgrade, I inevitably find myself watching with my father in law a handball game.
So you can get on the ground, the ground floor with handball.
It's never really taken off here, but it's, it's, it's very popular.
Adam: tried during the Olympics.
I tried during Olympics to do the handball thing.
I, I, I, but you
Brian: It's kind of like basketball and soccer.
It's a
Adam: honestly, like if all of a sudden handball had like a David Beckham, it would blow up.
if there was a character who was like a David Beckham master.
And, you know, and you were as interested in him as in him or her as an individual, like that would help.
Brian: Okay, let's, you know, you heard it here first.
Handball is the new, the new breakout sport.
Adam: one last thing.
I, I, I also should, mention that, Chris Stone, who was the, editor at Sports Illustrated for a long time.
And then at the LA Times is overseeing the newsroom and he's been, he's been fantastic.
And, and ironically, Chris and I worked together on, a really, Fun project, which was when LeBron went back to Cleveland and he did the essay in sports illustrated.
Brian: Oh, yeah, because that was like a little bit like he tacked back to the more traditional kind of thing, but it was, it was a little different.
Great, great cover.
I mean, you think about the, the, how much has changed from, from when Chris wrote that like article and you know, the cover of SI being used to say, you know, I'm, I'm coming home.
It's very, it's just a very different, a very different landscape now.
and I don't know, that's just how it is.
awesome.
Adam, thank you for, doing your first podcast with me and
Adam: Thank you
Brian: getting Joelle on here soon.
Adam: I'll get him a primer on the, uh, Google antitrust
Brian: Yeah.
Tell what once, yeah.
When GAM and whether they're going to split it off.
And,
Adam: you.
I'm an avid listener and, I really appreciate you, helping people kind of organize how everything's unfolding.
Brian: Thanks Adam.
Adam: Thanks, bud.