In the business of sports
Hi there! I'm Jose E. Ruano, the writer of The New Gazette. You are receiving this email because you signed up for it, a weekly newsletter about all things digital. Thank you for being here. If this email was forwarded to you, subscribe by clicking the button below.
Let me ask you some things to start
Are you a fan of sports? things like football, basketball or tennis
Do you like to know what is happening beyond a game?
Are you interested in all the things behind your favorite players? How did they end up in a certain team? or maybe how a club got so big?
If you answer Yes to almost every question
You’re exactly like me, a fan of the business behind sports.
I’m the person who enjoys a game when it’s on, whether is the NFL, NBA, or Football leagues around the world.
Watching how players got in their best shape and teams fighting to be the champion is always delightful but as I studied Business at university, there was always something inside me that wanted to learn about how some players or teams made it to the top.
I always have had a passion for these two areas, how they are connected and how one could affect the other in so many ways.
I wanted to know how a specific deal/ contract was made, the history behind a club, and why some leagues are better than others around the world.
There were always some sports shows on TV but neither got into lots of details as I wanted due to the relationships between the networks and clubs.
A few days ago I found a YouTube Channel that did that, in a (bi-)weekly video essay, they took tiny pieces of how something happened and connect the dots to create a story behind a particular event.
The Channel is called Athletic Interest, a place where the passion for sports and business intersect creating top-quality content.
The objective with every video is to:
fill a void we noticed in the media: a lack of coverage about the influx of money and traditional business concepts into sports.
Take for example the video below, where the creators took information between the PSG, the biggest Parisian football team (soccer to our US friends), and Nike, the apparel brand. Giving details of every single project and investment that went into action to make the team more visible to the outside world.
I’ve been a fan of PSG for a while but with this video, I learn more about the club and how it got so big.
On every essay you learn things normal media companies does not share.
I got really excited about this as you learn why certain things are that way, when does a specific contract was done, what type of partnership a team and a player have and how much money does the team make in all their operations
You could find the answer to the questions you always had around sports. Why things are a certain way or how they could change it to make it better.
The creators of the channel came from the same background as they met while doing sports at University in Cologne, Germany.
After a few controversial and sometimes passionate debates in the cafeteria about the latest record-breaking transfer deal, They decided to get together and use their skills (journalism, business, sports marketing) to create a space to talk on the internet using YouTube as a platform.
For me, it’s fascinating how their stories are so engaging from start to end. In a span of around 10 minutes, you could learn about any interesting topic about business in the sports industry.
You can see their strategy of doing video essays is paying off, on the chart below you can see that with only 27 videos they manage to get more than 15 million views and +274K subscribers.
Over Instagram, they started recently sharing more visual content to people to learn via graphs, images, and more, for later get into more details with the video.
Every design element of the content from Athletic Interest is in-line with the story being presented, they do not rely on placing products inside their videos as ads but focus completely on the quality of the investigative reports created.
The research they do is completely independent as the channel does not have a sponsor that isn’t beneficial to their audience and does not affiliate with any team they talk about.
The content is created 100% by the support of the subscribers on Patreon, which will keep the quality for the years to come.
Even if you do not like sports, there are certain elements that will keep you hooked to the videos, you could learn the power of negotiation, finance inside a million-dollar company, or the deals brands need to do to get to the top.
Athletic Interest deserved a story in here as they used the digital space, the internet, to share their content on every single corner of the world.
You see the games on TV, people wearing jerseys all the time, and conversations around this topic everywhere making sports a multi-billion dollar industry, and learning what’s happening inside this big machine is always interesting.
Athletic Interest got my attention as they are one of the many creators who focus on creating the best content possible for their audience. Using Storytelling as a tool to reach the masses, make me share it with you as this type of content could be interesting for you as well.
What do you think?
Until next week,
Jose
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The New Gazette Presents
Here are some of the latest creators I have found enjoyable during the pandemic
I have a sweet spot for all things about Taylor Swift (I know we all have!), and a few months back I found a channel called Chat and Reacts where two girls, Emily and Bonnie, react and dissect every single of her. Check it out here, They’re so funny, it feels like you’re right in there with them enjoying the music.
I always have enjoyed doing exercise but last year was a mess, all the gyms closed and we were required to stay home, it hit me hard but I started searching for a new sport to practice and found this channel about boxing, it’s called Precision Striking, where JT or as I called him “coach” teaches you how to improve your movements, tips, tricks and workouts to do in a very easy way.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff, the founder of Ness Labs, which I have talked about a lot started his own YouTube Channel to talk about productivity in a fun and understandable way. Check it out
Daniel Schiffer is the one you should subscribe to if you want to learn about all things video, especially ads. He’s from Toronto and gives good tips to improve your skills when recording. Here it’s the link to his channel.