Inside the Career of a Sports Business Leader

@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
On episode 300 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil
chatted with Eric SanInocencio, high-level marketer and operator with
deep sports expertise, with experience at the SEC, ACC, Houston
Texans, Amazon, Perfect Game, and more.
What follows is a collection of snippets from the podcast. To hear the
full interview and more, check out the podcast on all podcast
platforms and at www.dsmsports.net.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 300: Eric SanInocencio

Eric’s Career Path
"It always started with sports. I was the first in my family to ever
attend college, and it was because I got a baseball scholarship. I went
to a Division II school, the University of Montevallo in Birmingham
and played baseball for four years. My first dream was to play in the
major leagues, and I really thought that I had a chance. But it took me
about three weeks into my freshman year to realize I needed to find
another career path because I don’t think it’s going to happen with
baseball.

“At Montevallo I was blessed, the sports information director at the
time, DeWayne Peevy, who's now the AD at DePaul, told me, 'Hey,
you're good at stats. You really like sports. You understand how to tell
stories. Have you ever thought about sports information?' I had never
heard of it. I got into that. Afterwards, I was a volunteer intern with
the SEC and was lucky enough to get a paid internship later, making a
whopping $18,500 a year to work at the SEC in my first job. I really
enjoyed it, learned a lot, and got to work with many sports like
volleyball and softball. I got to know coaches and understand a little
bit about how campuses operate from an athletics perspective, and
that’s kind of how my career started.

“Then I went to the GSC, the Division II league I played in. What we
were doing there was we had a staff of five people for the entire
conference office. When you're at a startup, kind of smaller agency
like that, you get to wear multiple hats. I just lucked into social media.
I liked it personally. I got my first Twitter account, I think in '07 or
'08. It was at a time where I was like, 'Man, I could meet all these
different people, kind of learn all this different information.' But I
used to get in trouble at work because I was on it so much.

“The commissioner used to come by and be like, 'You're on this all
day. It's not part of your job.' And I was like, 'Man, I better make it a
part of my job so that I can do it and not get in trouble for it.' That's
really how it happened. I put the GSC on Twitter back in 2008,
created Facebook Pages not only for the league, but helped the
schools do it as well. Schools like North Alabama and West Alabama
that have traditions, great stories, and great players like Tyreek Hill,
who played at West Alabama, you have great stories there, you just
don't have the megaphone that you would at some of the bigger
conferences.

“So what we did was we started trying to connect communities and
build people that had these affinities for these smaller schools, and we
used social media to do it. We were one of the first ones there. Our
sideline reporter at the time, at the GSC, was a gentleman named Jim
Cavale, who's now, of course, doing tremendous things in the college
athletics space, founded a company called INFLCR. And now he's
working to help guide college athletics through this next phase. So we
did that together. We had a podcast. We didn't know it was a podcast
back in 2009. It was just us kind of talking about what was going on
in the league. When I did that, I really learned how valuable it was in
terms of storytelling and the reach that you could have in social…

“I was starting the handles, but I was also starting to understand how
people craved that connection and how sports was special in that way,
where it didn't matter what your background was, if you were
together rooting for the same team or program, you could build a
special connection through that.

“I used to tell Jim, 'Jim, there're going to be teams that their focus is
doing this social media stuff.' He's like, 'You're crazy.' And then like
five years later, he started the company to prove it. It was fun because
back at that time there were no parameters. It was basically Twitter
and Facebook. That was it. Instagram didn't exist. You were learning.
About a year after I started all that, the SEC called me and they were
like, 'Hey, can you do this for us?' I was like, 'Oh, cool.' At the time,
the job didn't exist. So I essentially got to write a little bit of my job
description.

“I was still updating websites. This was all part of what the digital
experience was back then. I was writing, I used to write a column, an
SEC football column. At that time, there were no defined lanes of
where this was to go. Commissioner Slive, I think I was 26, 27 years
old, told me, 'You handle this.' Imagine that being what the strategy
was. But for us, we were just learning and connecting.

“What was unique about the SEC at the time is, and still to this day
really is, how much pride they have in each other and in the region.
There are different conferences that won't coalesce around each
other, where the SEC will. I'm not saying Alabama fans will root for
Auburn, but in general, the league supports itself and is really proud
of the success, and really proud of what they do in that part of the
country. This was a great time for me to use social media to start
trying to connect those things. I was joking with you on LinkedIn a
couple of weeks ago, we had a Pinterest account back then. It made
sense because we were a lot of folks that were doing tailgating, and it
was recipes, and it was SEC themed weddings and cakes and all this
kind of stuff.

“So we were in that spot, but we were just trying to find out, where are
these audiences and how can we make sure that we're serving them
unique and behind the scenes content, which again, seems normal
today, like, 'Duh, Eric, of course.' But back then it was just a fun way
to kind of fill in the gaps where they hadn't existed at all.”

"In the back of my mind, I grew up in New York. I was born in the
Bronx, I've always been really passionate about professional sports. I
grew up a Yankees fan, a Knicks fan, a Giants fan. So in my mind, the
pinnacle was always going to the pros. I saw an opportunity with the
Houston Texans, and I was like, 'Man, this could actually be a decent
fit.' We liked the city. I was fortunate enough to get the job. I always
joke that I got my bachelor's in social media from the SEC, but I really
got my master's and my MBA from the Texans.

“There, I had to learn what it is about social, content creation, video
production that can aid in growing the business. That was the number
one thing the Texans were concerned about. If I was going to show
value, it wasn't in a follower count or an engagement rate. It was how
I was driving revenue to make the organization better, or how other
departments were using our social tools to grow their revenue.

“I spent six years there, and it was really fascinating because, again,
on the front end of thinking about content partnerships, sharing
content with our players and what that looks like, and building out
the beginnings of an influencer program. Nobody heard the term
influencer back in 2014, but we had them. We had players like JJ
Watt, Andre Johnson, Arian Foster. We had these players were not
only well-known in Houston but also in the general NFL fan base. So
how do we activate for them? How do we work on their behalf to grow
their brands' followings and intertwine them with ours?

“All of those things were built over the course of a wonderful six years
there, building sales pitches and sales decks. Some of the great stuff
we did in terms of partnerships around our number one draft pick in
2014 with Jadeveon Clowney, working with Papa John's in a unique
content-focused way. These are things that weren't happening. I used
to go to my president, Jamey Rootes, who has since passed away, and
I used to tell him, 'We're having success.' And he's like, 'Success to me
is the bottom line. If you want more resources, if you want more folks
on your staff, if you want to grow the team, show me where you're
driving revenue.'

“So it changed our lens. It went from, 'Okay, this is a cool content
piece to shoot,' to 'How can this content piece be a part of a larger
game day strategy that we can get a partner to come in and
supplement and want to be a part of?' It was so great for me and the
rest of our team to think about that. We had some wonderful people
that worked there: Jesse Clark, who's now running social for the
Bucks in Milwaukee; Jay McDevitt, who's still there; Aynav Liebowitz,
who's working in the rodeo in Houston. We had this team, but we
were all challenged to think in a different way: how does this drive the
business?”

“You always have to advocate for the importance of what you're doing.
But at every organization you go to, how you approach that with your
leadership is different. For the Texans, it was all told through the lens
of what value and what revenue are we driving. It's important as you
grow as a leader and you're running these departments and trying to
help your team grow within an organization, you have to speak the
language that leadership understands. Every one of those situations is
different.

“When I went to the ACC, which is the next stop in my career, there
were some revenue opportunities there, but they really wanted a
centralized message for the league. For them, it was really based
around the launch of the ACC Network. When the ACC reached out
and that opportunity came about, I thought it was really unique for
two reasons. Number one, I had never really worked on any kind of
project where social was used in service of a television broadcast
opportunity.

“At the NFL, we would always say, 'Make sure you tune in,' because in
the NFL you had limits on what you could post for your highlights.
But what we did was build an entire marketing campaign that was
driven through digital and social to make people want to get the ACC
Network. That was my first task when I was there. That was really
unique. They wanted social to be the forefront of the marketing
funnel to get people in.

“So now I was being challenged to not just be a social content creator or
social strategist, I was being challenged to be a marketer. My mindset
changed. The second part of the ACC job that I found intriguing is not
only did I have to do that, but I had to do it segmented based on all the
different schools in the league. So now I had to start thinking about
segmentation marketing, audience capture, and what's different about
each one of these locations. An ACC fan who follows Pitt, who lives in
Pittsburgh, is completely different from somebody who lives in
Tallahassee, Florida, and follows Florida State. Two different ways of
watching the games, two different ways of how they live. What their
financial capabilities are. What they do in their spare time. It challenges
you to really think of individualized messages and personalized content
plans. That was really fun.

“Then, I got to use the leagues and the schools and the leagues
themselves as a way to push that through. 'Here, Pitt, here's what we
think. But you tell me, because you're on the ground every day, what
you're seeing. Is this working? How can we partner together to make
sure that we're getting the most out of this for the league, the partner,
ESPN, and for you, the school and athletic department?' It's such a
fine line to balance all that. It's like putting puzzle pieces together. I
found it so exhilarating to do.”

“I would challenge anybody that listens to this or communicates with
me or you as they grow their career, especially when you're first
starting, social and sports is almost always viewed through the lens of
fun content to create and fan engagement. The quicker that you can
understand how this ties into the larger business objectives, the
quicker you open the door for you to consider other opportunities that
could be completely different and that might fit a timeline that's
better for you as you grow in your career, which is exactly what
happened to me.

“When I left the ACC, Covid had happened, sports had stopped. We
were challenged as a league to make up content and fan engagement
opportunities when there were no games. That's the epitome of, 'How
creative can I really be?' We created a bracket of best ACC players of
all time for basketball after the NCAA tournament got canceled
because of Covid. We had this battle internally: 'Do we include all the
players from the schools that are in our league now or not?'

“It was funny because Carmelo Anthony made the Final Four, he
never played in the ACC, but he was part of Syracuse, we had to
include everybody. But the fans ran with it, and they thought it was
fun. It was challenging to think about that. As we're going through
that, I was like, 'Man, what do I want as I continue to grow?' Your
needs as a person and responsibilities as a person change.

“At this point, I've got two young kids, a wife. So it's like, 'Where can I
go somewhere where I know that digital is the most important thing?'
Because I was still running into that a little bit where it's like digital
and social are great, but something more traditional might be more
important. There'll be times when you work in an organization, not
like the ACC. The ACC was fantastic. My boss, Ben Tario, was a real
visionary. He's the deputy commissioner there. But there are certain
limitations on what you can do, either based on how an organization's
run or the partnerships that they may have.

“So I was thinking about, 'Okay, what do I do now that really pushes
me forward in an area where I feel like I have expertise, but somebody
might have more?' That's where Amazon came about. When I saw
Amazon, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, they're on the forefront. Everything
they do is digital.' I know they have Whole Foods now and Amazon
Go and Amazon Fresh stores, but it's a digital-first company, a digital-
forward company. When I got headhunted by them, I was like, 'Man,
this is out of sports, which is different. Push me out of my comfort
zone. But, man, how much can I learn here? What can I be exposed
to, and how can I bring what I've learned from sports over to
something that's in more of a commercial space?'

“So I left the ACC to become the Head of Brand and Content at
Amazon. If you want to talk about using your path and using what
you've learned at each step of the way to help formulate what your
next role could be, I think that's a perfect example. I remember when
I announced that, you were one of the people that texted me. They're
like, 'Wow, that's different.' I was like, 'But if you knew where I was
going and you knew what I was learning, it wouldn't look that
different because I went from content, social, then marketing,
funneling, segmentation.' I was like, 'What's the next step?' Amazon
made the most sense for me at the time.”

On taking the challenge to work outside of sports
"I think there were two things. First off, it scared me. I was legitimately
afraid of, 'Can I do this?' I haven't felt that way in a while. To me, that was
a good indicator of this might be something that's worth trying. Secondly,
the salary they offered and the money allowed us to make some changes
in our family life that really advanced things forward. My wife is from
British Columbia, Canada. We'd always kind of thought about the West
Coast as a potential option. Amazon is based in Seattle. So between the
financial compensation and the opportunity to really be afraid, my first
day, and again, this was during Covid, it was a unique experience. I didn't
walk into an office, but the way Amazon onboarded you, it was so
different than anything I had done before.

“They tested you. You’d take these courses and depending on how you
did on the courses, that would determine the next course you would
take. It was like this built-out process: 'These are all the people you
need to meet on day one. You need to have meetings with these
people in the first week. You need to have meetings with these
people.' 'Here's the language of Amazon,' because Amazon has more
acronyms than the Army. It's called Amazonian language. You'll hear
the leadership principles all the time. We call those the LPs. That first
week and the first three months were such a unique experience that I
was like, 'Man, this is worth it. I probably would have paid to go
through this.' But instead, I'm being paid and being challenged in
different ways.

“So I think the two things for me were, it's okay to feel terrified of an
opportunity. That means it's probably something that you need to go
after. A lot of times, I'm guilty of this now, and I know we're going to
talk about this in a little bit, 'What's the next step in your journey?
How do you find it?' Especially now where there are so many people
looking for jobs, it may be harder to stretch like that. But if there's any
indication when you're signing up or contemplating a career change
or a job opportunity, it should scare you a little bit. 'Can I really do
this?' If it doesn't, you're probably selling yourself a little short.”

About the process of getting hired into Amazon
“I think Amazon is such a window into how tech thinks. You put in an
application. There's a dashboard just like everybody has at a big
company. The first thing you have to do is an assessment. They'll send
you something. For Amazon, it's a big written culture. You can read a
lot about this, Jeff Bezos was big on writing things down: memos, PR
FAQs. I'm starting to speak the language again, it's coming back to
me. I had to write something for Amazon as part of my assessment. It
was like, 'What's the most innovative thing you've ever done?'

“It was such an open-ended question. I wrote about what we talked
about earlier, the fact that I started social media handles for the GSC
when it wasn't something that was normal, and I thought that was
really fun and innovative, and I was really proud of it. You have to
write, I can't remember, maybe 250 to 500 words. I wrote something,
and they review that. If you go to the next level after that, then you do
what's called a loop interview.

“I've been on both sides of this because when I was at Amazon, our team
was brand new, I had to hire a bunch of folks from scratch. What Amazon
requires you to do is, once you have, actually, there's a step I missed: you
talk with the hiring manager the first time, and it's just a normal kind of
interview. But everything that Amazon does is scripted in terms of the
leadership principles. They're not going to ask you, 'Tell me a little bit
about yourself.' They're going to ask you specific questions that have to
do with a leadership principle. There's an actual PDF you get, and that'll
say for this leadership principle, whether it's 'be bold' or whatever
leadership principle you want to test for as a hiring manager, there's a
series of questions that they give you. It doesn't mean you have to read
them verbatim, but it gives you some background and context on what to
ask.

“You go through that first interview, usually takes about 45 minutes,
because you have to respond in a way that gives context, clarity,
action, and results. You'll hear the term STAR method when people
are interviewing. That's what that stands for: Situation, Task, Action,
and Result. That's how they expect you to respond. They'll say, 'Neil,
tell me about a time when you were working with Greenfly, when you
had to complete a project that was going over budget, and you had to
communicate to your leadership team that it was going over budget.
What happened when you had that conversation?' Then you, as a
respondent, have to say, 'The situation was A, here's what I had to do.
The task was B, here's the action I undertook, and here was the
result.' They expect you to know that on the spot.

“Most people will tell you when you interview for Amazon or
Microsoft or Facebook, I had like a little index card that had some
notes for me. It's like, 'Okay, if they ask about this LP, here's a story.' I
literally had, 'Us drafting Deshaun Watson.' That's all I put for that
one. Or, 'Me working at the ACC,' or, 'Me going to the national
championship to cover Alabama and LSU.' So I had it based off what
they were going to ask me. But you have to be able to recall all that
information and be able to tell a succinct story of what you did and
why. They're not only trying to figure out how smart you are. They'll
tell you, 'If you've made it this far, you're smart enough to be here. We
want to find out, are you smart enough to be an Amazonian? How do
you think? How do you act?'

“You go to that hiring manager interview, if you're fortunate to go
past that, then you go through what's called the loop. It's probably the
most challenging interview series I've ever gone through in my life.
Somewhere between 5 to 7 interviews, back to back in a day, where
you're going through the same thing again. There'll be members of the
team on the call, but they'll also bring in a bar raiser, which is
somebody that's in a different part of Amazon. They'll usually bring in
folks from other departments that have no clue about what you do.

“So imagine me trying to give this STAR kind of results and answer
series based off questions they would ask me that are all sports-
related, all my answers are sports-related, to folks that have no idea
what sports is. So it challenged me as a communicator and as
somebody who can advocate for myself to be able to explain why us
drafting Deshaun Watson and not knowing that we're going to draft
Deshaun Watson makes sense for a leadership principle that's
'disagree and commit.' I've got to do the work to say, 'Here was the
situation. Here was the task that was at hand. Here's the actions we
undertook and why. And here's the result.'

“They're going to have questions. They're going to stop you. They're
not going to let you filibuster. They're going to stop you halfway
through. They're going to challenge every assumption that you make.
You've got to be able to react on your feet, communicate. By the end
of that day, you are wiped, because these are 45 minutes to an hour
each. So it could be anywhere from 4 hours to 6 hours. You get a little
break in between. But they are coming through.

“What happens is, having been on the other side, that group gets
together, the loop group, and then they decide. They'll have to put
feedback into your file: 'This is how they responded. This is what I
like. This is what they said.' It's almost like a transcript. Then you vote
whether to hire or not to hire. Then there's a debate. You come into
the room, and there are the five folks who are deciding on Neil today
whether we're going to hire him for the role of content leader for
Amazon.

“They'll each go around, they'll be like, 'Eric, you were tasked with
these two specific leadership principles, how did they respond to the
questions? What were some of the things that stood out to you?' You'll
read your report that's already in the system that everybody's looked
at. You'll talk about it. Each person will go through the goal with the 5
to 6 interviewers is that they can try to cover as many leadership
principles as possible. At the end, we vote, 'inclined or not inclined,'
which is such a weird way to say it.

“You need pretty close to unanimous to be able to move forward. The
HR lead is in there, so they know, 'Okay, if we move forward, we're
going to make an offer.' Amazon thinks all of that through for one
hire. They'll tell you that it takes between 3 to 6 months from the time
they post the job to the time they hire. That's how serious they take it.
You have to do all of that just to get to the point where you want to
offer somebody a job.

“It really challenged me as I was going through it as a manager. I did
like 60 interviews at Amazon. There's an interface that tells you how
many interviews you scheduled, who you've talked to. In the two years
I was there, I did 60 interviews just talking to people because I'm
trying to build out a team. We needed writers, video producers,
graphic designers. Just learning about how to ask questions and how
to make sure that people, you would hire folks at Amazon that maybe
weren't the best fit for that immediate job, but they would be better
Amazonians long term. What a different way of thinking, right? It was
fun. It was exciting. It was challenging. That was a long answer, but
hopefully that gives you some context.”

Going from Amazon to Perfect Game USA
"I was at Amazon for two years. It's the hardest job I've ever had by far. In
the end, I just missed sports. It's hard to explain to people that don't work
in sports what it's like to be involved in something that you're super
passionate about, especially in the sports space. So when Perfect Game
had a Vice President of Social Media opportunity, as I mentioned earlier,
I'm a college baseball player. I coach baseball, my son's involved. You see
a lot of baseball memorabilia behind me. It just seemed like a really great
fit for me at that point in my career. It was remote, which was great. We
didn't have to move. We could stay in the area. When I got hired at PG, I
was familiar with the brand already just because my son was playing at
that level…

“For the youth space specifically, (PG) is a brand, a lifestyle brand.
They have merch and marketing. People are proud to be a part of it
because what it says is that you are at the top level of baseball athlete
at your age if you're playing. So definitely it's a designation that comes
with it.

“When I came in there, they had content folks and some marketing
folks, but they didn't have a traditional social media operation. I
remember asking during my interview, 'Do you have an org chart?'
And they're like, 'No, we're hoping that you can build one for us.' I
was intrigued by that. It was exciting. We spent time there just trying
to get the nuts and bolts down of how to operate. I was trying to
communicate that to our leadership and making sure that we get all
the posts because you have partnerships with Rawlings, partnerships
with all these different brands we're working with.

“We just got to make sure that we understand what that value is and
how we actually execute it. The challenge with PG is I think it's in 40
states, maybe more. You have tournaments every weekend. There are
thousands of tournaments every weekend. So you're never going to be
in a position where you can have a video person at each one of these.
So you've got to learn how to tier these to maximize what you're trying
to promote, which is obviously the brand, the tournaments, getting
more people involved, the individual showcases.

“There's a whole component there; showcases for those that are not
aware, as you get older, recruiting can be done through showcase
services, you show up at a showcase, there may be some colleges
there. This is for kids that are mostly juniors and seniors in high
school. They want the opportunity to be seen by a college coach and
evaluated because they want to play at that level, and showcases can
be an easy way to do it. There's a business built off the back of that as
well. We just spent that first 3 to 6 months really trying to figure out
what our areas of need for the team are. How do we structure this?
How do we communicate? How do we put some guardrails around
this, and just organize it a little bit more?

“I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I think it's important for folks
that are thinking about their career: organizational skills don't seem
exciting. They don't seem sexy. But they're very important, especially
as you grow up the ladder, because being able to organize, especially
across departmental functions, is huge, important, and will probably
be the biggest driver in your team's ability to have success. We don't
think about organizing in that way as a key principle to how we
operate. Perfect Game was a great example of that.

“We were able to do some great collaborations with the Baseball Bat
Bros, they are folks in the space that review baseball bats. It was an
influencer strategy. What was unique about PG and what helped me
so much as a professional is that I was now marketing to a segment of
kids that were 9 to 18 years old. It's such a unique way that they
consume content, who influences them. It was different.

“We started to market segment based off what's the difference
between a 9 to 12-year-old versus a 13-14-year-old versus a 15 to 18-
year-old. We actually built out these models that talked about who's
the biggest sphere of influence, how do we communicate with them,
what platforms do we think make the most sense. Because you have to
divvy it up. It's such a different experience if you're 16, 17 years old as
opposed to if you're 11. So we spent a lot of time thinking about
content through that lens and how our platforms were operating.

“Also, this is where YouTube became such a monster part of our
strategy because any young person will tell you, YouTube is probably
the front door for what they consider a television experience. It's not
cable. They probably can't tell you what MLB Network was or what
time a potential game is on, but they can tell you when their latest
influencer drops a new video. They're just conditioned that way.

“What YouTube has done brilliantly is because they get you earlier
with the Cocomelons and the cartoons, they've conditioned you how
to use YouTube by taking all the other parts of social media. YouTube
Shorts is Instagram Reels, it's TikTok. Their community feed, which I
don't think a lot of marketers use or think is important, that's the IG
grid. They've got that. They've got live, which is a part of all the
different social channels.

“When you are first signing up, you can't sign up to most social media
platforms until you're 13, but you can get a YouTube Kids account way
earlier than that. So you've got a 3 or 4-year head start with YouTube
in understanding how that environment is. Now you can just inject all
this content and get a head start in terms of how you're building a
relationship with your fans, especially the younger ones. So I learned
a ton there. I spent a wonderful year.

On budget and resources coming in as a senior leader with a remit to
build an operation
"It's different everywhere you go. But at PG specifically, it was like, 'Hey,
build this out that maximizes two things.' Number one, our growth as a
social department, meaning the amount of people following us. We
needed to grow. We needed to build the brand larger and outside of just
youth baseball. We're looking to get into different areas. That was the
first thing they told me. The second thing is, we want to build revenue in
the future. It wasn't immediate, but it was something that they wanted to
consider. So I said, 'Okay, we have an existing budget that touches
different departments. I want to coalesce that. And here's how I would
spend our dollars based off what we think.'

“So I was given a number that we tangentially touch because there
wasn't a social media proper department. So, 'We do this, we do this,
we do that. Let me bring all that in and let me figure out based off our
staffing, based off, you know, we started to build an intern program
there.' All of those things, we partnered with Blinkfire. It was like,
'Here's where I think is the maximum revenue. If you give me this
amount, here's how I would spend it.' Each place is a little bit
different. Most of the places you go will already have an established
departmental budget that you have some ability to influence and
make change. But PG was unique in that social media was considered
part of all these different areas that were already in existence, and we
were bringing it together.

“I think everyone always thinks they're understaffed. I haven't met a
person that says, 'Man, we've got too much. Let's do less.' The way I've
approached it, and this has changed over the years, I try to stay away
from comparison. There's a great quote: 'Comparison is the thief of
joy.' I always think about that in terms of department, because if you
look somewhere else or if you're looking for somebody that has more,
you will always find them, and it'll always leave you frustrated.

“What I've tried to do is use the Amazon idea of working backwards.
What is our goal as an organization, or what are the three goals that
we have, and how as a social content marketing department can we
influence the success of those goals? Then I want to build a team that
feels personal ownership of those, so that I don't have to tell them
every single thing they need to do, they already know.

“For example, at Amazon, we had the idea of getting more people
signed up into Amazon Store. Just a little bit of context so people
know: at the time, 60-70% of the stuff sold in Amazon store is not
done by Amazon. It's done by third parties, by small businesses. What
Amazon has done is, you come into this market, and then there's a
partnership that forms between the selling partner and Amazon, and
then you get the scale of all the folks that shop at Amazon Store.

“As you do research, you understand in general when it comes to
entrepreneurs, the biggest fear they have is that they're doing this all
alone. They don't realize, because you're head down in your business,
you're working hard, you're trying to start something from scratch,
but you don't realize there are all these other people that are doing the
same thing that you are. That's where the engagement comes in and
connecting them and telling the stories, inspiring people.

“When we knew those goals, then each person on the team knew what
their role was in filling those goals. That's how I look at it. If I were to
build a department from scratch, I would ask my leadership team,
'What are you trying to accomplish here?' They're always probably
going to say, 'We need to make more money.' The second thing is
always going to be some kind of engagement or growth statistic. Now
everything's different. It could be, 'We want to sell more tickets,' or
'build a bigger ticket base.'

“It could be, 'We want to expand our partnerships,' or it could be
something as simple as, 'We want to go from a top 20 Major League
Baseball team in following to a top ten.' I've seen different versions of
that. Once you know what those goals are, now I have a team in place,
and I've got to figure out as the leader of the team, where does
everybody sit within this goal structure, and what can they do to help
affect change and making sure that we hit that goal?

“From there, you can figure out, 'Okay, Neil's great in this area. So
let's give him ownership because that ties into our fan engagement
goal. And now we're going to cut Neil loose in this area.' He's going to
know specifically everything I do. The second part that everyone will
tell you that works in sports is that we have too much to do. We can't
do all this stuff. The problem is, you end up doing 15 things instead of
3 or 4 things great. This is another Amazon principle. If I have those
goals and I know Neil is servicing those goals by what he does X, Y,
and Z, if what he is asked to do does not fit in those goals, then do not
do them.

“Now I've created a pathway, a lane, and a way to communicate to
other departments. 'Hey, I understand that you think this is valuable
and important, but this doesn't fit in with our organizational goals,’ so
now I have the ability to say no, and now I have the ability to say,
'Hey, I'd love to work with you on something else that ties into these
goals, but what you just gave me is not the best use of the limited time
that we have.'

“That visibility, that clear line of understanding, and then
communicating that to other teams makes your job as a leader easier.
People are still going to be upset that you didn't do what they asked
you to do, but at least they will understand why. As a leader, that's
something I've grown on because when I was first coming up, a boss
told you something, you just did it. There was no conversation.

“Now, I want to be able to articulate to my boss or to somebody that is
working on our team, 'Here's why you're doing it. Here's why it's
important that you do it. And here's how it ties in to what we're doing
as a group.' You've got to be able to have those things on hand,
because then people will understand and feel like, 'Okay, I'm part of
this decision-making process, and I'm part of the machine instead of
just being told what to do.’”

“As a leader, it's your job to foster that environment [that what you do
matters]. They used to say there are two types of employees at
Amazon: a strategy employee, which is usually L7 and above. That's
how they rank people. You come in L3, L4 all the way up to L7, L8.
You're just a strategy employee. Your job is to just think about
building strategy. Sports is a little bit different. Even if you're the VP,
you may get out there and shoot some content on your phone. You
may be writing an article.

“You may be hosting a podcast. But still, there's a difference between
execution and strategy. As you grow in your career, you have to let go
of that execution side and focus more on the strategy, which is hard
because most people that are put in management positions were great
individual contributors. 'Man, you're our best videographer. Why
don't you run the video team?' Those are two different backgrounds
needed to make sure that those go well. That's a different type of
request that you're asking of somebody.

“So I think as you grow in your career, always keeping in mind what the
strategy is will be helpful because that'll become more and more
prevalent and more and more part of your job as you grow. It's hard to
see that sometimes when you're head down on your phone and you're
working 60, 70 hours a week just trying to get everything done. But
always, if you can, try to ask questions around the strategy of what's
being done, and a good leader should be able to articulate that to you
and show your role in what that is and how it's going to overall not only
help you grow as an individual, but help the organization grow. That's
where that kind of communication is so important because that's your
job as a leader now: to constantly communicate the strategy and let your
teammates know how valuable they are in making sure that happens.”

Realizing he had a career and growing into senior and leadership roles
"I think I noticed I had a career. I started to feel like I had a career
when I got to the SEC. At the GSC, it was so new that it was hard to
understand what path I was going to chart. 'Is this even a career path?
Who knows? It doesn't exist.' When I got to the SEC, I started to
understand, 'Oh, this isn't going anywhere.' It was really the launch of
Instagram. I was like, 'Man, this is only going to grow.' You started to
see phones became more prevalent. Twitter started to explode. It
wasn't even sports stuff. It was the Arab Spring, it was all these
different things in terms of how folks were communicating with each
other. At the SEC, I knew I had a career.

“In terms of how I planned it out, for me, I was always trying to think
of what was the next opportunity that excited me. I want to dive into
this a little bit further. I'm definitely going to answer your second
question. But for people, and again, this is easier for me to say as a
44-year-old man now, do not chase money. I'm sure you could talk
about this, too, with your pharmaceutical marketing job. A lot of
times we are chasing the bigger title and more money. Really, what we
should be chasing is fit. I know that's easy for me to say as somebody
who's run social and digital and a lot of big brands, companies.

“So it's easy for me to say that now. But what I would advise people as
they're starting their career is, again, two things. Number one, take
more risk because you have less that is relied on you. You may not
have a family when you're 24, 25. The biggest mistake I made in my
career is when the SEC offered me, I should have realized, 'Oh God,
I'm one of the few people that really knows how this works.' Instead of
working with the SEC only, I should have started some kind of
advertising agency and worked with everybody. But because at the
GSC, I was making $27,500 a year, and the SEC offered me $52,500, I
was like, 'I'm cooking now.'

“So I took that opportunity, it wasn't a money decision. It was a great
fit. Everything was fine. But I probably should have seen or foreseen
that this is a growing market that not many people understand, but
I'm one of them. I should have gone to the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and
started an agency, and who knows where my career would have been
at that point. I was risk-averse when I probably shouldn't have been
because I was just newly married, didn't have any children, didn't
really have any bills. I was risk-averse. So, again, take some chances
when you're young.

“Secondly, don't always think money and a bigger title is going to
make you happy or satisfied. There's a good study that tells you once
you make past $75,000, and most people listen to this like, '75 grand,
that's a lot.' And it is a lot, but once you make past that, your life's not
going to change a ton in terms of what you need and what you're able
to do. We all want to be comfortable. We all want to have that level
that we don't want for anything. But once you get past that point,
choosing money and title is not going to automatically guarantee you
happiness.

“I always go back to fit. What is the best fit? What is the best fit for my
skill set? What is the best fit for me as a person? What is the best fit
for my family or whoever else is important to me? Just giving this
group advice, the folks that listen to your podcast, that's how I would
look at it if I could do it over again.

“To answer your second question, when did it switch? I really wanted
to be a good manager. It's important to me, and I think it's because
I'm a coach at heart. What I'm doing now is I'm coaching softball, my
daughter's softball. I love to coach kids. I've been coaching sports as
long as I can remember. It just brings me a lot of joy to help others
succeed. That's just who I am.

“So, when I got the opportunity to manage, the first time I managed
somebody was at the Texans. I'd love for you to ask Jesse or Jay
McDevitt, 'Was Eric over the top too much?' Because I probably was,
but I wanted to make sure that we had a good manager and employee
relationship because I'd had some bad ones. So it was important to
me. The skill set, I really tried, and Commissioner Slive used to
always tell me this, he used to say, 'Hey, if I make a decision and you
disagree with it, write it down, because by the time you're in my
position, you're not going to remember what it was like to be you at
22, 23 years old. You're only going to have the experience of what you
have now. So write all that stuff down.'

“So I wrote a lot of things down that I said, 'If I become a manager,
I'm never going to do this.' A lot of times you're going to go back on
what you said, because when you get to that situation, you're going to
be like, 'Ah, now I understand why maybe they communicated to me
that way.' But I really tried hard as a manager to be as transparent as
possible and to also understand where they wanted to go. If you
wanted to be at this level of this position, it was my job to get you
there. I never took it personal when somebody got a better job, even if
it was terrible for our team, because it hurt us, because the person
was great.

“I didn't ever want to be the person that held you back. If you told me,
I used to ask everybody that worked with us, 'Where do you want to
be in two years? And how can I help you get there?' It may be, 'I bring
you in on some meetings so you can understand budgetary concerns a
little bit more.' Or it might just be, 'Hey, I'm happy where I'm at. Just
keep feeding me the work. This brings me purpose.' Then that was
great. But until you have those conversations, you've got to advocate
for the people that are under your umbrella. It's so important.”

“If you want to do it well, you learn to love it. I used to run the Texans
Twitter account, and that was so much fun. But I had to give it up
because it made more sense to give other opportunities for people to
grow and for people to have that chance. Managing people is not
always easy. People have things going on. They have challenges in
how they like to be managed. Everyone is different, and it takes more
time to be good at it. I can't treat Neil the same way I would treat Eric
or the way I would treat my son Derek.

“Everybody's different. You've got to take the time to ask them, 'How
do you like to be communicated to? Do you want me to email you? Do
you want me to text you? Do you want me to call you? Do you want
me to sit down and have a one-on-one?' What's the best way? Because
everybody's different, and a lot of managers don't take that extra time.
That's where the breakdowns start to happen. For me, if you think
about a team and everybody's pulling in the right direction, it means
the leader has taken the time to figure out what works best for each
person. Then tried again. Tried because we're not perfect, and we're
always learning. Try to put that person in the best position for them to
succeed. That's all you're trying to do every day as a manager.”

Identity and Purpose Beyond Work
"Sports is unique in that it allows you to be a part of something that's bigger than
yourself. It's one of the few areas where you can really pull forward and feel success
with a unit. When the Texans won or the SEC won a national championship, there's
a small part of you that felt like you helped in some way. Obviously, it wasn't
throwing the ball or making the three-point shot. When I was at the Texans and we
went to the playoffs, we celebrated like we were part of the team, even though we
were just helping ancillary because we felt all as one. There's something special
about that. When I left for Amazon, there are other parts of your life that fill that
void, I have index cards around my office. The one that I always have right in front
of me every day is this one: 'Dad.' My existence and who I am as a person will
always be dad. I'm sure we're going to talk about this here in a little bit as I
transitioned out and I'm looking for my next opportunity now.

“But what sports does is it makes you feel part of a community. That's
something that we all will grapple with even when we leave. There
may be other things that you'll find that will make you feel that way.
But being able to say, 'I'm part of,' back in the day was hashtag
SMSports (#smsports), to feel like you're part of that is really special.
Even now, I always joke because I live in Gig Harbor, Washington, a
small community outside of Seattle.

“Nobody here knows who I am or what I've done. I'm just Derek and
Isla's dad. They'll come in my house and they'll see. I've got a J.J.
Watt sign, a poster over there. I've got all this memorabilia. They'd be
like, 'Where did you get this from? Where did you work?' There's a
part of you that misses the immediate recognition of, 'Oh, I know who
he is. He works here,' and the validation that comes with that. That's
always going to be hard.

“My advice would be to people is to build something outside of your job that
gives you that stability, that gives you that worth. It'll help you if you do leave
sports to find out who you are. Most studies will tell you the two things that will
frame your long-term happiness are your purpose in life, meaning what you're
doing, and secondly, the community with which you belong. That can mean a
lot of things. It could mean your religion. It could mean something that you're
passionate about. It can be volunteering. It could be all those things. But
finding something that gives you that purpose in a larger sense of community
will help. But nothing does that like sports does. We don't have to search that
out. We already have it every day when we go to work. So it is a challenge for
you once you leave it to fill that bucket. I always joke, 'Man, I used to be this
guy,' and I joke with my kids, 'Your dad used to be a big deal.' And they're like,
'But you are a big deal to us. You're our dad.' That recenters the conversation.

“That's how I'm, again, long answer, but hopefully people that hear
that can understand that it's something you'll grapple with all the
time, because there's not a professional experience that will give you
that sense of purpose and sense of community in a job as much as
working in sports will. I don't think so. It's just so unique.”

“As you're young, being able to immerse yourself in something that
gives you that sense of continuity, that sense of purpose, and
something that feels special. Do you feel special when you work in
sports? There's nothing wrong with grappling with that. But you are
more than the logo that's on your business card. So continuing to find
those pathways outside of it. It could be anything.

“For me, it's coaching sports. It's coaching a softball team. I've got an
11 and 12-year-old softball team I coach, and I treat them as if I'm
[head softball coach] Patrick Murphy at Alabama. We've got all these
practice plans. I take it way too serious. But that's the way I pour out
into other people and how I feel that I'm providing value. Just trying
to find those areas, and it could be all kinds of stuff. There's no right
or wrong answer. It's unique. It's tough. I don't think that ever goes
away.”

What it means to network and the value of it
"To me, networking is like a bank account. You have to make sure you are
pouring into it when you don't need something so that when you do need help,
there's a balance in there. Two mistakes that most people make in terms of
networking. The first is they network too high. The greatest network you can
form are the people around you going through the same thing that you are. The
reason that's important is because one of those people will start a business. One
of those people will move and get another job. One of those people will leave
sports and perhaps start working somewhere else that needs help. They're
going to want to connect with people they know and they trust. What we think
when we first start out is, 'I've got to network with the top folks that can help
me right now.' But those folks and you don't have a ton in common. So it makes
it more awkward, and it makes it harder to build a true connection.

“Jim (Cavale) used to always say, 'I want relationships over
transactions.' I was like, 'Man, that's so smart.' To me, I've always
tried to build relationships, connect with people that have similar
backgrounds as you. This happens. You'll go to an NFL event. You'll
go to a conference. There's a group of people you already know. That's
a network. I think they just think, 'Oh, that's my friends.' But that's a
network. They can connect you to different people. The second thing
is building relationships and genuine points of connection instead of
just saying, 'Hey, I know you, I need something.' It's really hard for
most people to ask for help.

“I struggle with it. Even now, as I'm looking for my next opportunity,
I feel like I'm bothering people. There was a job at a company, and I
knew somebody that was there, and I felt bad because I hadn't texted
this person in two years. I was like, 'Hey, can you help?' And I'm so
sorry that I'm asking you this. He goes, 'Why would you be sorry?
When I took this job a couple of years ago, you spent all that time
talking to me about what it meant to work at a team. You helped me
decide what was important for me. It's the least I can do.'

“Most people want to help. But again, they want to help because they
feel like they have a relationship with you, and there's some
reciprocation. To me, networking is about looking around where you
are and building connections there first. If you can make a connection
with a commissioner, a president, that's fantastic. But again, I don't
know how much you're going to have in common with them. It's great
to have it. But when a connection can help you, they can help you
because they know who you are, what kind of job you can do, what
kind of person you are. They can only know that if they have a
relationship with you.

“So again, I usually start with the folks around me, and I'm really big on
constantly trying to check in with folks, maybe when they don't need help
or when I don't need help. I try to send texts. I have a goal every day to
send three texts to people that I haven't spoken to in a while. I literally go
in my phone and I'll type 's' and I'll see all the 's's come up. I'm like, 'Oh, I
hadn't talked to him in a while.' Time will get away from us. We're joking
about this. We're like, 'We should talk more often. Why don't we?' There's
no reason we shouldn't. It just takes time to do it. So network with the
folks around you and build relationships so that when that bank account
has money in it, if you need something, there's plenty to take out. That's
how I approach it. The people that matter the most to me or that I ask for
advice for are not folks that were my bosses or bosses' bosses. It was folks
that I was in the trenches with every day.

“Two folks that I ask for advice all the time: Bryan Blair, who's the
Athletic Director at Toledo. He worked at Rice when I was at Houston.
I was like, 'Man, we're at the same level, we got a lot of friends. We
should go grab lunch.' We didn't know each other. I was like, 'Let's go
grab lunch. I don't need anything.' So we sat down at Rice Village for
lunch. We ate at a pizza cafe there. Got to know his family. Got to know
his wife. He has kids now. He went from Rice to Washington State,
Washington State to Toledo. If I need advice for somebody, I text Bryan
because we've built a relationship. Same with DeWayne [Peevy].
DeWayne's known me since I was 17 years old. That's a relationship.
He's known me since I was the baseball player, begging him to turn the
error that I just hit into a single so my batting average can go up.

“To me, those are the relationships I count on the most. I knew
Commissioner Slive. I know Greg Sankey. I can text Greg Sankey, but
Greg Sankey is busy, and we don't have a ton to connect on unless I
really need something. So find people that you can build relationships
with, and that network will help you go. Because Bryan Blair might
know somebody, or DeWayne might know somebody, or somebody
else. That's how it happens. It's more genuine. The help is if they
know who you are.”

“It's a balance. But if you knew how important the relationships
would be not only to your growth but to helping others, you would
spend more time. I think time gets away from us for reasons that
probably aren't as good as we think. You never know what somebody
else is going through. Somebody can shoot you a text, and it can
literally change the outlook of your day. 'Man, I didn't expect to hear
from you today.'

“A good friend of mine texted me last week, and I hadn't heard from
him in a while. He just sent me a joke, an inside joke that we used to
say when I was at the Texans. I told my wife, 'It was so great to hear
from him.' She always encourages me to take the next step, which I
think we all should do better: talking to each other. It's much easier
just to communicate through text now. But there's something about
talking to somebody too that just makes you feel like, I'm not saying
we're all lonely, but we're all in these individual silos of what's going
on in our life, and just letting people know that you're there for them,
or that you can be there for them, or that you can go have a drink with
somebody.

“That's probably what I miss the most. I've been remote in the
companies that I've worked with since Amazon. That's almost four
years now. Actually, it's more than that. It's going on six years now.
What I miss the most is having that ability to walk down the hall. I
used to do this at the ACC all the time, I used to walk down the hall to
our sports info group, go in there, just say hi, give them a high five,
throw a little piece of candy at them. Just something. Build that
connection. Those folks you spend a lot of time with. I think that's
something that we probably take for granted being in sports, how
close we are to everybody.

“But there will be a time where you won't be that connected, and it's
going to take a little bit more work. But as you and I both know, it's
almost always worth it…We're of the last generation that can
remember what life was like before social media. I think it is
important that we continue to emphasize why it matters to do things
in person and how it helps you grow because it's going to become
harder and harder over time.”

About looking for a job now in 2025
"This is probably the most difficult job market to navigate that I can ever
remember. It's not because of anything that any one individual is doing. I
just think if you see across the board, all industries are cutting, slashing:
government jobs, tech jobs. So there are more folks out there that are
looking for their next opportunity than I can ever remember. That just
makes it super challenging. If you see on LinkedIn and you go job searching,
a job may pop up, and then six hours later, it'll tell you 100 people have
clicked for it. It's amazing how quick, and how much just overall competition
there is for every role out there. The way I'm trying to navigate, again, I'm in
a very unique and privileged spot. We've saved some money. We're in a good
spot financially, so I can be a little bit more picky and choosy.

“For me, what I try to do is I try to see opportunities that make sense.
So I'm looking for mostly remote or something that's got to be in this
area. As I mentioned, I've got a soon-to-be high schooler, we don't
want to move. If I wanted to move, there probably would be more
opportunities, and I understand that. When I see a job that fits, I try
to immediately apply just to get my name in the system. Secondarily, I
look to try to find connections, direct connections that either work
there or somebody that works there so that you can get to the top of
the pile. That seems like basic 101 job search. But that's so much more
important now because the pile is not 100, wow the piles are in the
thousands. It's literally trying to hit a lottery ticket.

“What I would advise folks that are out there searching is you've got to
continue to communicate to your network that you're available. This is
probably what I struggle the most at, because I don't like to ask for help.
I'm not good at it. I feel like I'm bothering people a lot. What I try to do is
just communicate to folks, 'Hey, if you hear anything, let me know,'
because a lot of times you mentioned a side door. I'd like to go through
the back where I don't even have to interview. That would be great. It's
like 75% of most jobs are never posted, they just are kind of filled. I've
gone through some opportunities here. You're going to have to look to
maybe down-level a little bit. Wherever you were before, it used to be,
'Oh, I could have 70% of the qualifications and still apply because I can
stretch and get the other 30.' Here, the competition is so high, you
probably need to match 100% of what they're asking.

“For somebody like me that's been in a vice president role, I may need to look at a
director's spot or something like that just because the competition is so high. The
last thing I would say is that you've got to find unique ways to keep yourself
relevant in people's eyes. What I try to do is comment on other folks' conversations,
whether it has to do with strategy. You're great about this. You always post stuff, so
I'll dive in in the comments, leave some stuff. I'll try to post things I see and leave
some thought leadership around it. If I'm lucky enough to be a part of a panel or
speak at a school, I always try to get a photo or something like that. You've got to
remain visible in people's feed. We always say this about the teams that we work
for: 'You've got three seconds to catch your eye.' As a candidate, guess what? You've
got three seconds to catch your eye. The content that you can create about yourself,
and when this podcast is over, I'm going to be the first one, 'Hey, Neil, can you send
me some clips so that I can do X, Y, and Z?' I just think you've got to market
yourself the way you would market a team or a star athlete.

“Sometimes that's hard because that means we've got to put ourselves
out there. Sometimes we feel like it could be a little cringey, but you
have to stay top of mind for people. What opportunities do come, and
they go look you up, there's not just some static story about you.
There's an evolving story that they can read about, learn about, and
understand.”

“I try to reach out to people that I've already talked to for other
matters. So it's just not out of the blue. Occasionally, you have to go
out of the blue, and it makes it a little bit uncomfortable, but you've
got to hustle for the opportunity. Usually, what I try to do is I say,
'Hey, I just want to let you know that I applied for this job, and I saw
that you have a connection.' I usually do this through text. I don't do
this through LinkedIn. I have to have a relationship with somebody
that I feel like I can text them or call them. That's just me.

“Other people may do this through LinkedIn, but I find that most
times you try to do something through LinkedIn, it's just very
difficult. I don't think people check it in that same way. So I'll shoot a
text to somebody and say, 'Hey, I applied for this job at your
company,' or, 'If I know they already work at the company, I let them
know, 'Hey, I saw this job. I'm going to apply for it. Just FYI, I just
wanted you to know.' Or if there's a secondary connection, 'I know
you know somebody at this company. I applied for this job. Would
love if you could connect me with someone there.'

“Give them an action. Don't just say, 'I applied,' and then, 'Oh, okay.
Great.' But you don't ask them to do anything. So I usually say, 'Hey,
Neil, I applied for a job. I'm going to apply for this job at Greenfly. I
know you work there. Can you tell me who the hiring manager is?
And what's the composition of the team?' Now the conversation has
started. 'Oh, yeah, I know this person. The hiring manager is Eric. I'm
in meetings with him, and he's got a team of X, Y, and Z.' Then you'll
find out whether that friend is comfortable saying the next sentence,
'Maybe, hey, I'd love to send him a resume. I know him well.' Or
they'll tell you, 'Hey, I don't know him very well, but I'm happy to
speak on your behalf, if you like.'

“But again, that usually doesn't happen until you've asked them for
something specific. If you just say, 'Hey, I applied for this job, just
want to let you know,' 'Okay, great. What do you want me to do about
it?' People are busy, so I usually try to give them, this goes back to my
Amazon — Situation, Task, Action, Result. 'This is what I need from
you.' That's usually how I've found success. Then you just continue to
check in and say, 'Have you heard anything?'

“Another thing I feel like is the job processes now are longer than
they've ever been. I'll apply for something and either not hear ever
again, or it could be three weeks. I'm like, 'Oh, I forgot I applied for
that.' It just takes a really long time. So just be comfortable being a little
bit patient. Also know that you may be immediately dismissed because
you're overqualified. I applied for a job a couple of weeks ago. I reached
out to the HR director. I got her email, and I reached out to her directly.
I was like, 'Hey, here's my background. Would love to compete for this
opportunity.' She told me, 'Your experience is out of scope for this role.'
Whereas I was thinking in my mind, 'Man, shouldn't I be able to make
that decision? I'm applying. If it's lower, but I'd still like to compete.' I
never heard back. So you've got to be prepared for some of that as well.”

“That comes back to building relationships instead of just
transactional conversations. I still will apologize to people. I'll be like,
'I'm sorry that I'm bothering you, but just would love your help.' And
they'll tell me, 'Just ask. It's okay.' Most people want to be helpful,
and that's just me personally. I've got to get over the fact that it's okay
to ask for help sometimes. I'm always bending over backwards to help
anybody else, but I'm not great at doing that for myself. So something
I'm trying to work on too, because I think people want to generally be
helpful.”

“You have to understand as a person what your runway is in terms of you
feeling comfortable still being in the job search. For me, I'm still in that
space where I want to be sports first or something that's sports tangential. It
could be something like coaching. For me, I've kind of toyed with the idea. I
love baseball, I love softball, I love coaching. Maybe that's a path that I could
take. But I'm still at the peak of my passion phase. It's got to be something
I'm super passionate about. What I found, and my wife tells me all the time,
she's like, 'I want you to find something that you will be passionate about
and that you will enjoy.' But right now, for me, that's working in sports or
helping young athletes. Those are the two things I think about. She always
jokes, or I always joke that I should be a professional advice giver because
I'm really good at giving other people advice. I was like, 'I don't know if that
role exists, but maybe I'll find that job.'

“At some point, we're going to have to sit down and talk as a family
and be like, 'Okay, our situation has changed.' Luckily, I have a wife
that's incredibly supportive. She's a physical therapist. She's got a
career of her own. So we've got an opportunity. We've been really
frugal financially to where we can make sure that we have everything
we need for a while. But at some point, the question is going to come.
That's different for everybody. What's the point where I've got to
decide that, 'Hey, I need something?' Even if it's just something to
hold you over till you get back into sports, that's an option too. I know
folks that drive and have done Ubers just to hold things over and
continue to stay afloat financially. That line for everyone is different.

“But for me, I'm still in the phase where I want to chase something
I'm super passionate about. Open to what that could be. But at some
point, you're going to have to decide, 'Okay, I need to be employed by
this date so that we can feel comfortable making sure that we have
everything we need.' What does that look like? Where is that? What
company is that with? The beauty of social is that you are a multi-
departmental candidate. You always work across departments. It's
just the nature of the beast. You know, content creation. You also
know marketing trends. You may not know that you know them, but
you do know them.

“So those are all applicable in other areas. You're actually usually
pretty good at customer service because a lot of times you're the
person out there with the credential that fans are talking to you or
players are talking to you. That's all customer service. We limit what
we are capable of doing just because, to your point, we're told that
we're this. But really, every part of our day job can expand into other
areas because we're exposed to so much.”

“My experience [consulting] is definitely easier said than done. I've
talked to some people who are having success in that space, but it
takes a lot of work, a lot of follow-up, a lot of prospecting. I don't
know that I'm comfortable crossing that bridge yet. But I will say, to
me, the most valuable thing we have in our life is our time. We can't
get it back. I don't care how much money you have, you can't buy
more time. So I always look at the decisions I make based off where
I'm spending my time. Right now, even though I'm looking for my
next opportunity, I feel like I'm spending my time in a great place. I
haven't missed a game for my kids in a year, and I'm thankful for that.

“Especially in the situation where my son's about to start high school,
and these days are becoming less and less. He hopes he plays in
college. We hope he plays in college. Same with my daughter. But you
never know. I'm enjoying the time that I have. So to me, I always try
to look at if I'm going to take something that's a side hustle or I'm
going to take something on that's outside of a normal job, what is the
time commitment look like, and is it worth my time to do it? When
the calculus becomes yes, then consider it, of course. But right now,
I'm in a spot where that time, in my opinion, is better spent being dad
at home and making sure I could be present for them.”

Mental Health and Job Search Resilience
"The uncertainty is hard. We all know it's going to work out at some point, but not
knowing is the hardest part to go through. For me, there are days I handle it well, and
there are days I don't. When the kids go to school and my wife is at work, and I'm
kind of staring at four empty walls, it's easy to start to think, 'Man, what happened
that I'm in this situation?' But then I usually try to pull myself out of it by thinking
about, 'How fortunate am I to have the experience to be here, too?' There are a couple
of things that I really do that help me when I'm starting to struggle with that.
Sometimes the way I relate to it is I feel like when you are in this period of transition,
you feel like the world is moving on, and you're not, and you're kind of standing there
watching the world happen around you. That's not always an easy feeling to sit in.
For me, I found two things that really have helped me. Number one is just having a
schedule. Making sure, and it may be something as simple as, like Mondays, the day
where I vacuum and I do laundry, and it has to be done by a certain time.

“Then, I build in 30 to 45 minutes in my calendar every day to
exercise. It could be riding the Peloton. It could be lifting weights. It
could be going for a walk when it's beautiful outside. Those things are
helpful to me. Then, believe it or not, podcasts have been a way where
I find connectivity and feel like I'm a part of something. There are a
couple of weird things about how I listen to podcasts. Number one, I
listen to them at three times speed so I can listen to a 60-minute
podcast in about 25 minutes. I've always been that way. My brain just
processes fast, so I can do it. Sometimes, those voices, I think this is
why podcasts have become so important and successful, is because it's
that closeness. That connection of hearing somebody's voice in your
ear makes you feel like there's a meaningful relationship.

“I always joke about, I listen to Bill Simmons, but then I'll listen to Kara
Swisher and Scott Galloway if I want to hear about tech talk. I'll go
through 4 or 5 podcasts in a day. I'll listen to The Daily to hear about
what's going on in the world of news. Then I'll listen to The Town, where
you know what's going on in movies and celebrity. It goes all the way. I
listen to a true crime podcast sometimes. Wrestling's another big thing.
We're big wrestling fans in our house. So there are some great wrestling
podcasts out there. That helps me feel like I'm connected to something,
even though I may be by myself. Whether I'm taking it on a walk with me
or while I'm doing the dishes or whatever other honey-do list my wife has
created for me for that day, I've got my earphones on, and I've got a
podcast that's queued up so I don't feel alone. I feel like there's somebody
or somebody that's connected to me.

“When the kids get home, it becomes easier because we're going to
practice, or I'm coaching. I always joke, Sunday Scaries are something
that people talk about. I have the reverse Sunday Scaries. I love the
weekend now because on the weekend, I'm Derek's dad or I'm Coach
Eric, and I have all this responsibility, and I have all this ability to help
and ability to share my wisdom. Whether I'm coaching in a game, it's
just fun. Sunday night, I hate Sunday night because Monday morning I
go back to just being the guy who's back on his job search, and I've lost
all that responsibility and all that connection. So I got the Sunday Scaries
the other way. The Sunday Scaries for me is that the weekend's over, and
I've got to remember that I've got work ahead to do that may not be easy
or may not be something that makes me feel great all the time.

“That's a daily thing that you battle with. But finding that community,
finding some kind of schedule that fills your days, it's made it easier
for me. But there are days it's great, and there are days like you feel
like, 'Man, what a failure I must be to be in this situation. What did I
do wrong that I'm here now?' It may not be anything. I don't think I
did anything particularly wrong. It was just the factors of a certain
economy. But it does make you question. And that's normal. But try
to allow yourself not to sit in it all the time because it's not good for
you either.”

“Everyone, best coaches in the world, Nick Saban got fired. It's just
something, and again, more prevalent nowadays. How many
government employees are going through this transition after the past
six months? Different sectors are getting hit in different ways. We're
talking about this before everything started, I don't think this is
something that's not going to be normal moving forward. With AI and
where that's going, and the ability to do things and the way they
compute, there are opportunities to scale jobs and change what the
face of work looks like. I think we're going to be having these
conversations a lot.

“What work means to us will eventually change quite a bit in a short
period of time. So these are conversations that we need to continue to
have. To your point, just know that whatever you're going through,
you are not alone. You've got a community of folks, and sometimes
you just got to reach out to them. When you're on the other side, and
you're in the job, and you know somebody is struggling or trying to
find that next opportunity, it may not be going as easy as they would
like. Be that person that reaches out to them. Be that person that says,
'Hey, how's it going? You want to chat for a few minutes?' Little things
like that. Those goals can really help make somebody's day better.”

Advice for the Next Generation: Jobs vs. Careers and Planning for the
Future
"What we talk about with our kids are jobs versus careers. Not saying
that one is better than the other, but there is a difference. A job is
something you do every day that allows you to satisfy whatever you
need to so that you could live. A career is something that you're
passionate about and that you can build. What we're having them
think about, especially my son as he heads into ninth grade next year,
is which path do you want to take? Because they each have different
distinct lanes of how you get there. So a job is different.

“My brother is a helicopter mechanic, and he went to a technical
school to get that skill. He's been doing that job for 15, 20 years now.
Super happy, pays well. He's 9 to 5 for the most part. On his
weekends, he enjoys time with his kids. He's got a pool in his
backyard in Alabama. He loves it. That's what makes him happy. But
it's just a job for him, and that's okay. For some people, they want a
career, and they want to do something that they're really passionate
about. Once you determine what you kind of want, whether it's a job
or a career, then I think that's where you can start to build the plan of
how to get there.

“Right now, my son tells me he wants to play professional baseball. I
don't know where he got that from. Of course, he got that from me.
But I tell him all the time, even if you're lucky enough or talented
enough to reach that level, everybody stops playing. Ken Griffey Jr.
stopped playing. Do you know what he does now? He's a
photojournalist. Randy Johnson, do you know what he does now?
[also a photographer] You still got to have a plan for what you want to
do after those days are over. Right now, he says that he wants a
career. I said, 'What kind of career?' 'I really like coaching. I think
that could be fun. I like seeing what you do, Dad,' or, 'I want to be a
math teacher,' or, 'I want to be a lawyer.' It's something that's popped
in his brain.

“I was like, 'Okay, each one of those paths requires different
commitment levels. Let's talk about it. This is what you need. A
lawyer, you have to have a postgraduate degree.' 'Well, Dad, what's
that?' 'It's like after you go for four years, then you've got to go for
more.' He's like, 'Do I know anybody like that?' I said, 'Yeah, your
mom. She's a physical therapist. You had to go get hers.' The guy that
I coach with, he's a lawyer too. It's making folks visualize what they
want for themselves, and then building a plan and a path of action to
do it.

“There's that great quote, 'If you can't see it, you can't be it.' As an
individual person, whether that's somebody graduating from college
or somebody that's 15 years old, you have to visualize for yourself
what you want. I visualized wanting to work in professional sports.
My original goal was to do it as a general manager of the Yankees. I
didn't get there, but I got there another way.

“So I would tell them to visualize what they want and then build a
path to get there. 'He who fails to plan, plans to fail.' Really work hard
to think about, 'Okay, I want to be a lawyer. Here's the steps I need to
do. Here's the work I need to do to get there.' I'm a big believer in
process. That's just the athlete in me, the coach in me. I will always
look at the process over your results. Results can be fluky. They can be
lucky. Process is not.

“What is your process that you're building? My son told me this year,
'Dad, I want to throw 80 miles an hour.' He's a left-handed pitcher,
and he's going his freshman year. 'I want to throw 80 next year, and I
want to be able to grab the rim.' 'Okay. Is that your goal? Well, show
me your plan. Where are you going to work out? How are you going to
long toss?' He may reach those goals, and he may not. But at least he
knows that there's work to be done to reach goals and to make things
happen. That's what I would tell them. Keep working. You never
know. AI is going to create; five years ago, one of the safest jobs in the
world was to be a coder. How's that job right now? You never know.
But if you work hard and you have some kind of process in place,
you'll be able to adjust when things change.”

“You just don't know. You can't eliminate anything. We didn't know
social media would exist 15 years ago. We didn't know the iPhone
would. So you can't limit yourself. If your dreams don't scare you,
they're probably not big enough. That's to me where it all comes to. If
you shoot for the stars, you may land on the moon in a different area.
But what is your, you've got to go for something. Because if not, that's
the job instead of career. That's fine. If you just want to be this and
that's all, that's great. But if you want a career, I don't think you can
limit yourself because you don't know what the future holds for you.
You just know that you want to chase something that you care about.

“Using baseball as an example, I wanted to play baseball. Instead, I ended
up writing about baseball. Covering baseball. Moving to football. Working
at the ACC, where [they had] 8 million sports. Working a Super Bowl,
working in NBA finals. That all started because I wanted to play
professional baseball. That goal was scary. Nobody in my family had ever
gone to college before. 'How can you even think about playing pro? You're
in Daleville, Alabama. There's like 4,000 people in this town. What, are
you nuts?' I'm going for it. But I got to Montevallo because of that goal.
There I met DeWayne, and there I met my wife. Then I ended up here,
and I met here, and I met here. All because my original goal, I didn't
come close, I failed at my original goal. I never made the pros. But I
found a whole new lane because I was shooting so high that on the way, I
found a different path.”

The key insight or revelation or guiding principle that has stuck with Eric in
his career
“When I was at the SEC, and I was sitting in a lot of meetings that I probably
should not have been, I realized that I always thought the higher-up levels,
everything was real buttoned up, and everybody in there was incredibly
intelligent and was the top of their field. I think you just realize when you get
in those rooms that it’s just people, and it's about people and relationships.
That's always what it comes down to: people, relationships. A lot of times, the
simplest choice. That was pretty eye-opening. You're sitting in some of those
meetings where they're discussing expansion and this, that, and the other,
and you're just like, 'Man, this is about people and relationships.' That's really
what it comes down to, especially in sports. It's so insular that way.”

During Eric’s time as an adjunct professor, the most important lesson that he
wanted to leave his students with, and what's the most important lesson he
learned from them?
“The most important lesson that I wanted them to leave with is that you have to
be able to articulate your successes. We spent a lot of time thinking about,
when a project was over, how could we articulate what we did and why it went
right or wrong? I think that's a missed part for a lot of folks in the social space.
They can say, 'Oh, I have this great idea,' but they maybe don't follow it up with,
'Okay, this is why it matters. These are the steps that we took.' Just being able
to articulate that. I would spend a lot of time with them during our classes of,
'Okay, you turn in this paper, this is the research you did. Let's talk through
whether this worked or not and be able to communicate it to me more so than
what's written on a page.

“The most important lesson I learned from them was just how much
of an impact you can have. And again, I did it remotely when I was an
adjunct, so I was like, Oh, I really wish I could be in a classroom, but
I've since done some other teaching in person and it's amazing. Like
you'll find somebody years down the line that will come up to you and
be like, Hey, you spoke to my class once and you said X, Y, and Z, and
it really was helpful to me. I just you don't realize how how much you
can help somebody just by simplifying something for them. So, yeah,
it's it's really valuable and it makes you feel kind of special to be able
to have that privilege to do that.”

Eric’s favorite content and campaign and/or campaign from his time
with the Texans
“That's an easy one. So we did Coach Keraun, which was our first kind
of influencer partnership. Keraun Harris is a wonderful actor,
influencer and comedian. He's from Houston, he lives in LA now. He
became the Madden spokesperson later. I don't know if you
remember from that series that he did, that was him. But before that I
saw him at a game and he was hugging like Deshaun Watson and
DeAndre Hopkins, I was like, who is this guy? And I looked him up
and his videos were hilarious.

“So I had our folks send him a DM on Instagram and I was like, Hey,
would you mind doing something with us? And so he came to the
office and he sat and I was like, I got this crazy idea, I was like, do you
remember the Jon Gruden series with the quarterbacks, where he
would kind of sit and kind of pick them apart? I was like, how about
we do that and your coach Keraun? But you're going to start doing
stuff that has nothing to do with football. He's like, what do you
mean? And I was like, I knew DeAndre Hopkins and him were kind of
friendly, so I was like, let's do DeAndre Hopkins, because he used to
wear these really outlandish outfits. I was like, it's you making fun of
what he wears and grading his outfits and he's like, Oh man, that
could be great.

“He gave us so much of his time. He gave us a whole afternoon and
the guys were so happy to do it. It was like him, we had the kicker do
it, Ka'imi Fairbairn. We did this funny video skit where he was doing
a tour of the building and nobody knew it was Ka'imi Fairbairn but
him and he was in the elevator and he was talking about, This is
Ka'imi Fairbairn, like nobody knew because he was a kicker.

“He was real funny. And then he used to do Coach Keraun, they kept
him after I left to do just these funny skits of, like, this is how you
should work out, or it was kind of a precursor to the Coach Al skits.
And again, I'm not saying that the Yankees copied us in any way. They
did something amazing with Coach Al. That was really fun, but we did
a version of that. And to have somebody that was from Houston, that
really was a fan of the team, that really resonated with our audience.
And they knew who he was, especially a segment of our audience we
didn't talk to a ton.

“It was really special for me, and I still text him from time to time. I'd
be like, man, I'll send him pictures. I'd be like, you remember when
we did this? It was really great. It was really fun. And those videos did
really well.”

The most memorable project or campaign from Eric’s time with
Amazon
“Man, that’s really hard. I would say just we did a series of videos with
entrepreneurs talking about why it was important they started their
own business. It had nothing to do with Amazon, just telling those
stories. We did a series of them, we had two real series that stood out.
The first one was, ‘Hi, I'm an Amazon seller’ is more introductory, but
the other series we had, so it was a member of our team, her name
was Camille Cherry. She really liked the series Humans of New York,
so she wanted to do Sellers of Amazon, which was like a written
version of this, where it's like I'm telling my story in four parts.

“It's written kind of in that social first copywriting style. We got
pictures and some of them would really share these amazing times
where they were battling drug addiction, but they came back through
it, or they were in the military and really struggled with PTSD. Or one
guy that always sticks out with me, Ujamaa Lighting. He told the story
about how lights, to him, he sells lights because it meant that his
lights could help families have these special moments together,
whether it was at a kitchen table or in a living room. And his lights
lasted longer. But he's like, To me, my lights are a part of them being
able to grow as a family. And I was like, what a unique way to look at
selling lights. It was just really fun to hear them kind of tell those
stories.”

The most impressive athlete or athletes that Eric has seen perform up
close
JJ Watt. You know, there was one year and I can't remember it was
2015 or 16 where he was in the MVP running. We were running him
out as a tight end. He was doing fade routes and scoring touchdowns.
And there's one great, you guys can go look it up, it's on NFL
Network, when he was miked up and we were playing the Titans and
he had just sacked somebody and caused the fumble, and we had it in
the red zone. And he literally ran off the field, and Coach O'Brien sent
him back out there. Then he ran like an out route and caught a
touchdown. It was incredible.

“And again, you have to think about the size that he is. Like he's 6’5”, 300
lbs. That kind of athletic ability was nuts, and we had the privilege when I
was at the Texans, where we used to get to work out in the gym. We had it
during certain time periods, but obviously the players would come and go
and you just would see JJ. I remember one time he came out of the gym
with his shirt off, and it was me and another young lady who were going
to work out, and like, we've never felt more unfit and we felt like we were
overweight then when he came out and like, just chopped at like 6’5”, 300
lbs. And he was the nicest guy. You know, the stories of him, what he's
done for the city of Houston, obviously with Hurricane Harvey, but like,
there's so many things that JJ did for the community that nobody knows
about because he just did them because it was the right thing to do.

“Tremendous human, great person. But like from an athlete
perspective, some of the things he would do on the field, I was just
like, this guy's 300 lbs. Like he caught a fade, I think was against the
Browns, but we literally lined him up out wide, and he made a move
and caught a fade as a touchdown. He's 300 lbs. It's incredible. So
yeah like I think JJ Watt to me the most impressive athlete I've ever
been around.”

What Eric learned about younger demographics and their habits during his
time at Perfect Game
“I'll give you some of the statistics of what we learned. When you're 9 to 13
years old, the biggest sphere of influence are your parents and the kids that you
play sports or have activities with. It's really that simple. It's like the sandlot
version of life. It's really unique how you try to market to them because they're
just not exposed to everything yet. What I found really unique about the 16 to
18 demographic is how much of a veteran of social media they are. Most studies
will tell you that people are on their phone anywhere between 7 to 9 hours a
day, which is terrifying to think about, so let's say eight hours a day. By the time
they're 16 to 18 years old, they've been on social media 3 or 4 years [if you do
the math]. They've got years of experience on social media. They've been
through all the negativity of it.

“What you need to know about them is what matters to them is who
they aspire to be. It's actually quite unique. When I was at PG, we had
the All-American Classic, which is their version where all the top
players in the country come and play against each other. We had Gary
Sheffield there, Trevor Hoffman, Alfonso Soriano, folks that you and I
would go nuts about. Players didn't care anything about that. They
cared about the kids who were just All-Americans a year ago and were
in minor league ball, or the Christian Moores of the world that played
at Tennessee at the time. A few of those guys came out, and they were
mobbed because to them, that's who they aspired to be like. It was a
unique way of thinking about how you market to them. What we think
is cool is not necessarily what they think is cool."

How Eric keeps up with the industry and learns
“This might be unique to me, but I'm a big newsletter fan. I've signed up to
probably 10 to 12 different newsletters that cover lots of different topics:
marketing, AI and automation, some commerce ones. Then there are the
general ones like HubSpot, Matt Navarra has one, all that kind of stuff. I'm a
big newsletter person. That allows me to kind of scan on a daily basis. If a
particular campaign that, say, a beauty company did caught my eye, I can go
read and research more. It's just more so like being aware of all the things that
are happening. If there's big changes being made to Instagram's algorithm, for
example, and Adam Mosseri does a big podcast about it, then I can read. So I'm
a big newsletter person. It's helped me because I can curate the content that I'm
getting. I do that for whether it's political, whether it's news or stuff like that. In
general, I really like newsletters."

The best meal to get in Washington (where
Eric currently lives) and where to get it and
the best meal to get in Houston and where
to get it
"I'll do [Houston] first, because to me, that's
easy. That's Killen's BBQ in Houston. They
open, and you have to stand in line. Luckily,
we had one of their shops at NRG Stadium,
and we actually catered them quite a bit.
Saying it's the best barbecue, there are 50
others that are within like five miles because
[Houston BBQ] is so great. But Killen's is
the first one that immediately comes to
mind.

“Washington is unique, especially where I
live, because there's not a lot of chains.
It's a lot of mom and pops. Since we live
in Gig Harbor, I would take you to a place
called Tides Tavern, and it's right on the
water here. I'm very fortunate, I live like
two blocks from the ocean there. It's right
down there. They actually have boats that
will come in, dock their boat, come into
the restaurant, and then leave. It's got
very local food, obviously seafood kind of
stuff. But it's also got like a bar and a
hangout area where you can watch some
games.

“It's not the fanciest place around here, because there are some
fancy places that my wife and I occasionally will go to. But I
would take you to Tides Tavern, and we'd have a nice cold
beverage there on the water and maybe have some fish or a
pizza or something and just watch the boats come in and out.

“Every city has things that they're good at and things that they
will try to do. There are some decent barbecue places here, but I
think the barbecue and the Tex-Mex, just the variety of Houston.
Houston is a special food city just because it's such a melting pot.
The Indian food, the Tex-Mex, all kinds of different cuisine. And
of course, the barbecue is next level. The steak places in
Houston, don't get me started on some of those. There's some
great food in Houston, I do miss it from time to time. But the
beauty of it is, when you get to go visit these places, you get to
immediately jump right back into the cuisine. Houston's really, it
may not be an underrated food town, I don't know how people
rate it, but I think it's the best food town I've ever lived in."

What would an elementary school age Eric have said he wanted to be
when he grew up?
"Professional baseball player. I had two ballplayers I idolized growing up:
Derek Jeter, obviously. My son's name is Derek. I have a signed Derek
Jeter ball behind me. I grew up in the Bronx, and the Yankees, [Jeter]
was about 15 when he first showed up, actually, 14 in '95. Just being able
to watch him grow. I've always admired him. But I also love Ken Griffey
Jr. I know that sounds like a homer pick because I live out here in Seattle,
but I used to play his video game on Super Nintendo. Ken Griffey Jr.
Baseball. It was fantastic. Just watching how much fun he enjoyed, he
was the first person that made it kind of cool to wear your hat backward.

“And now [when] I'm coaching, lots of kids, they all hit BP with their
hat backwards. That's Griffey, what he was able to do and how cool he
made the game seem. Those are my two guys. I love those guys.”

In the year 2030, what's the SEC going to look like and what's the ACC
going to look like?
"I think in five years, they'll still be the same. If you'd have told me 2035, I
might have thought a little different. I think the SEC is going to be so hard,
the amount of talented programs across the board. You looked at the final
eight of the women's college softball, I think like 4 or 5 of them were SEC
because you just added Oklahoma, one of the best softball teams of all
time. So I think it's going to be so hard. I think the year-to-year changes
are going to be really dramatic. So I don't think it's going to be where
Alabama or Georgia wins every year. It's not going to be possible. It's
going to be too many good players, too many good teams across each
sport. So I think domination is going to be harder to come back.

“I think the ACC is going to be competitive at the highest levels of
every sport, but maybe not the same amount of depth that they used
to have just because the transfer portal flows up. We've seen it out
here at the University of Washington, Washington State, where they
fit into the larger scope of things. So I think the SEC is going to be so
hard, and the ACC, there's going to be teams that pop for a couple of
years, and there's always going to be a revolving door just because the
nature of the beast. But I think they'll still be intact as they are.

“It'll be interesting to see as consumption habits change and what
people decide to do in terms of monetizing college sports. You've seen
some private equity talked about coming in. It's going to change a lot.
There's no sport that's changing more than college athletics. I think
it's going to be a reverse side of that as well. You already saw
Michigan freeze hiring, say they're going to reduce their staff. It's
going to happen everywhere. So I think things are going to change.
It'll be interesting to see what that landscape looks like. But my guess
is they'll both be intact as they are, at least for the next five years.”

Eric’s Social Media All-Star to Follow
“That's really hard. I consume so much content…From a podcast
perspective, again, I listen to probably 5 or 6 a day. I like Kara
Swisher and Scott Galloway [Pivot podcast]. They talk a lot about tech
and understanding business markets, and it just helps me as a
marketer think about, 'Oh, okay. I never thought about that. Kara
Swisher is really brilliant when it comes to understanding tech and
especially the leaders of tech. She's pretty good at explaining what
makes them tick and how things will move forward, especially in the
AI space. So podcast-wise, that's one of many that I enjoy listening to

“Newsletter-wise, there are so many. Puck does a couple of really
good newsletters. They do a lot in the entertainment and sports space
combined. Matt Belloni is another one that I think is pretty good in
the podcast space [The Town], just the way he thinks about
Hollywood and how that's all changing.

“From a follow perspective, I'm going to go back to my roots. I think
the WWE, for anybody that enjoys storytelling, they are the best
storytellers in the world when it comes to sports. WWE is the best.
They make you care about something that has a predetermined
outcome, that's how good they are at storytelling, and that's how good
they are at making you care. It's like the best soap opera that involves
athletics and performance. It's so good.

“You think about some of the biggest actors in the world; they all
come from that space. You think about politics, that's wrestling, that's
heels, that's faces. They've influenced culture so much with how they
tell stories and how they build characters and how they build story
arcs. So if you're not following the WWE, especially like on YouTube,
Instagram and the way they use it to tell stories about all of their
characters. It's incredible. It's such a great tool to learn, about how to
really make people invested in characters over a long period of time,
and the characters change. That's what's great about it. It's fantastic.”

Where to find Eric on digital/social media
Find him on LinkedIn and he is @EricSan on Twitter (but not as
actively posting there)

@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
Thanks again to Eric for being so generous with his time to share his
knowledge, experience, and expertise with me!
For more content and episodes, subscribe to the podcast, follow me
on LinkedIn and on Twitter @njh287, and visit www.dsmsports.net.

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