More Than a Game: Why Are We Obsessed With Sports?

values create habits habits create culture for me Swagger is when authenticity meets greatness that's what makes it cool for me Sports has always been about friendships players in any sport they want to know that you're invested in them as a person not just a jersey number be mindful of people going through life Welcome to the cultural leadership funds zone of Genius Series where we explore the stories of cultural leaders the impact and evolution of their Industries Technologies role and what and how they create and how to keep innovating with intention we hope you enjoy it thank you all so much for joining us here today I'm really excited we're in Brooklyn New York the energy is good I hear the the subway out back I'm so excited to be here with leaders in the sports industry true Geniuses at the intersection of sport Athletics and culture to talk about a space that you all love so much and what the future might look like so I kind of want to start with a couple of just icebreakers nothing too crazy let's do it why Sports I'll start I mean just uh why Sports biggest thing for me there's no gray area I always like knowing at the end of the day there's a winner there's a loser hopefully on the right side of this you know of the outcome more than the wrong side but to me it's just no gray area at the end of the day that's debatable because some of these camera shots and missed flops and stuff but I hear you there's a winner and a loser what about uq for me uh Sports has just always been my Foundation growing up in Southeast DC I had a actually a basketball court in my backyard and my pop was uh actually played in The Negro baseball league oh wow our family was raised in an environment where Sports really wasn't an option like nor was education and so it's just something that was always a part of my life and growing up in southeast um most of the successful older black men that I saw were either lawyers or doctors or accountants and I didn't know anyone unless they had played professionally who had really made it in sports and I realized I didn't have the true talent to play professionally and it was a it was a Crusher a heartbreaker for me I had to figure something out really quick and so I just started to stick with my passion for the sport of basketball and I said you know what I'm gonna create a basketball lifestyle for myself sure I think I've done that what about you Robin my world listen I was allergic to sports for a long time allergic allergic like you would break out yeah I mean listen I would do anything to skip at a gym class I told we become the stories that we tell ourselves oh stomach they can't make it um so really a pair of running shoes saved my life and I say that like not hyperbolically um I was held at gunpoint actually not too far from here in New York City when I was in college and I became a pseudo negotiator with NYPD you know I was basically a human shield and and ended up having this inflection point after this trauma so I was sitting with the trauma and I didn't know how to physically get it out of my body because I wasn't an athlete and I had never Associated movement with healing and so I used to be a corporate litigator before I moved into wellness and that the pair of the dusty pair of running shoes in the back of my closet that I chose to put on one day and go on foot to campus to law school's campus instead of by car truly changed my life and it was in that process that I started to catalyze the pain into power and so that was when I discovered oh I can be an athlete even if I've never been on a team or never won an award and that was the really intimidating thing and now my life's mission is to light fires in people's lives and to widen the aperture and democratize wellness um for folks of all kinds but I had to start telling myself the story that I belonged yeah because I didn't necessarily see a lot of Latinas I certainly didn't see a lot of folks you know in the corporate space that were trying to do what I was going to do so I was like I'm just going to sign up with these crazy ass races and then I started doing Ultra marathons so 50 100 mile ultra marathons and I found my healing right [Laughter] and then I just kept on running I think endurance athletes have like a little For Better or For Worse a little screw missing and we just agree tap into this inner voice and yeah 50 50 miles is I think is my favorite distance but I've done quite a number of marathons and Ultras in total I think depending on the sport the endurance is different right yeah because when even when you think about basketball Me growing up while I fell in love with it to your point it was a release it was a way for me to have like a a sanctuary whenever I was struggling within the crisis and Trauma that was around my environment growing up in southeast but the endurance comes in like the drills yeah so while you may run a hundred miles non-stop I'm out drilling for three hours yeah it's the report stop so it's not I'm not going the distance that you're going but I'm doing the repetition of something over and over and over and over and over again at the same level of endurance for me Sports has always been about friendships yeah first generation immigrant here in the U.S so when I moved here almost five years old I didn't speak the language so the way to make friends was to kick a kickball in the Student Union of the college campus my dad went to grad school at and then roll forward like some of my best friendships have been made through Sports Mike Elementary School basketball teammates my high school Boston made my College rugby teammates and actually my co-founder and my CTO so he's one of the first people I ever met when I moved to the U.S so his dad and my dad went to grad school together that's a friendship that's now 35 years in the making and we stayed in touch through Sports it was initially sending each other trading cards on our birthdays well then it became AOL Instant Messengers I'm dating myself send articles back and forth and then eventually it was a fantasy league that gave us uh checking on each other's families every single year and so I equate sports with some of the best friendships and some of the best memories of my life and as a result our humke's mission is to try to bring that experience to more people yeah we're a social gaming company around Sports I really love what you said about the community and the family of sports there was a meme of a video of this I want to say a college athlete after March Madness and they said what are you going to miss most about playing for your school and he starts crying and he goes going out to eat right because when you're with your team and you're on the bus and you're traveling and doing your games like those moments after the game when you're just hanging out at Applebee's or Chili's and just hanging out like that is the community that's so important in sports and what people over here and say I'm gonna miss the games and the drills it's going out to eat with my teammates and you know part of that you know what we're all saying implicit without saying it is you know being the best at your sport whether it's teammates you come in contact with people you grow up playing with when you get to that certain level it's all you're thinking about okay what am I willing to sacrifice what am I willing to give up to be great right so those you know can you talk about those relationships with those people you know teammates friends that you're waking up with six o'clock in the morning you're creating a bond with those people um that's different than even some family members yeah because you're going through whether it's trauma whether it's overcoming adversity things that people that you're maybe you're closest to from by blood or by family origin they can't relate to so when you hear about those tears that college kids have when they're leaving the environment you know they're they're missing that camaraderie but also the communities and uh like that incubator it's different from even even from Team to team from sport to sport you know when you talk about basketball with the number of players that they have on there roster versus football in my you know in my Arena where you're at 53 on the active roster um you know in the off season you're at 90. yeah that's that's a large Brotherhood um so think of all those think of all those relationships that are being forged guys that maybe grew up like you or someone that you may come in contact with that has the complete opposite background the complete opposite outlook on things that are separate from Sports whether it's politics whether it's religion and you form that connection with them so that's why I feel like sports is so special when you talk about that community that sense of community it's different from just saying hey we are in this community because we just we grew up there we were forced to grow up here it's I think it's a chosen Community which makes it different it kind of goes back to something you said earlier about how black and white sports is there's really no gray and the fact of the matter is even if you have a roster of a hundred a roster of 10 or 12 or 15. in the professional space the fact is that most people are not going to be Pro right people play all through high school and all through college most people like that is the end so you have to connect the experience to something other than winning right and usually because most people don't make it that far um in order to and just really have that that low of the the community and the sport so Q I want to start with you you have led a number of different brand marketing campaigns Etc Reebok Nike American Eagle one kind of how does that experience from those kind of companies translate into the work you do now with the mbpa um and what are some of the things when it comes to marketing and brand Partnerships that you think are consistent what things do not change no matter what kind of field you're in copy so um the experiences I've had from helping to develop and run Brands like Reebok working at Nike in the American Eagle I've been very fortunate in that I've worked with all that work has been done through the lens of working with some of the top athletes yep and some of the top influencers were connected and related to Sport and culture right and so how that translates to the work that I do today is is around I'm in a role now so the for-profit side of the National Basketball Players Association that's a company called think 450 yes where we basically think about all 450 active NBA players so 30 teams 15 players per team is how you get to that magic number and it's my job to think about their Collective influence how I can take that Collective influence and develop a brand that is holistic representative of that Collective influence but also helps them individually with their personal Brands so I'm always saying that my challenge is how do I build their Collective influence while protecting their personal interests because they all have personal brands that they're developing and I'm leveraging and pulling from that to build this overall holistic Collective brand this Collective influence and so what I often look at for me I've always applied a formulas to how I think about branding and how I connected to a consumer or an audience or community Through kind of three filters one I have a brand filter I think there's two traits that really make up a brand one is called the essential trade which is that main ingredient that keeps your brand alive and relevant it's very unique to you and then the second trade is what I call connectedness traits and those are all the things like pricing design style whatever it might be that might connect that brand to a consumer audience yeah and then I look at the consumer and I say there's basically a lot of reasons why they decide to get involved with a brand or an audience but there's really three that really don't change in my opinion yeah there's what and I call it like the eqi effect so it stands for emotion quality and identity the Best Brands when you think about Nike you think about the brand Peloton the brands that you really love and adore they connect with people on an emotional level they have a quality product that they represent or service and it's something that people can identify with you know I want to be like Rob because I'm a working mom I'm pregnant and I want to continue to work out so I identify with that she's teaching at Peloton which is a brand that I respect the quality it's an emotional connection because I'm my wife is a Latina fitness instructor so it's a Latina you know connection there and that's how that could work and then the third piece where most people Miss is that also take those traits and apply it within like a cultural context yes so some Brands exist in the spirit of like they gather insights about their brand or they gather insights around the consumer but where they miss the Mark is they don't take those insights and necessarily apply them within a cultural context so how do you cultural code your brand basically that's what people Miss that's what people Miss rituals myths beliefs Traditions that if you're not thinking about that stuff like one of my favorite favorite um brand examples at T was looking to grow their business with African-American women so you could tell like they went and did the insights where they found like women are passionate about their hair they love comedy like they they did this traditional focus group kind of stuff and gathered these insights they literally took those insights and applied them directly so they ended up doing a campaign where they went into a beauty salon shot these black women they had hugely as a comedian and joking with women in a salon the cultural context that they missed was yes true black women love hair yes true black women love comedy cultural context they don't play with their hair though they don't like you to make a joke about stop the hair yet and that's the part and so 18t had a big fumble the right insights the right brand insights but didn't apply within the right cultural context and um and so I try to make sure in the work that I'm doing I keep because of the work I was able to do with Alan yeah and keep cultural context is a big part of the stuff that we're we're navigating and looking at I read an article where they called you an expert on cool yeah and I think Robin you talk a lot about like the Swagger yeah tell me one how does that translate into the Sports World can it be manufactured do you think it's about authenticity what is it about the cool and the Swagger that translates so well into sports and why is that um I think like Sports culture music culture hip-hop culture that is the birthplace of what how we interpret in our literate around Swagger yep and that's just the starting point though I think the the so I sweat with swagger is something that I came up with um and now Swagger Society is like my new lifestyle membership club because it's being willing to self-define your own Finish Line meaning your own definition of success looking good for victory and knowing even if you don't know it you're going to figure it out yeah that's Swagger it's that like person who's walking down the street and you're like I don't know if I would wear that but I'm paying attention you know what I mean like it doesn't have to be you know I look like you you look like me but I think in the Sports World you have this magnifying glass on greatness Talent technique and they're you're looking at folks who are trying to explore their edges in a very public stage and I think that that is a Marvel and something that's beautiful but also something that requires amplifying your inner voice and listening to The Whispers until they become Roars and I think I am most activated and excited by folks who are willing to turn their Whispers into Roars and I think that's a real Swagger and it could be expressed in all kinds of ways right jewelry clothes shoes but those are and that's about authenticity but when it's done you ask if it can be manufactured yeah I don't think it can be manufactured well I think the kernel is always that fire in your belly yeah and it's just like give me the mic I got you yeah you know it's like passing the mic to the right people yeah so she talked about the X Factor initially right and I think a lot of the Swagger is defined within that X Factor and building off of what Robin just said the the authenticity of everything like for me Swagger is when authenticity meets greatness that's what makes it cool right so you say like using Allen as my framework he was extremely authentic and who he wanted to be he made a conscious decision and I think the reason why he and I connected he made a conscious decision that while he adored Mike and worshiped Mike as a player he didn't want to be like Mike he wanted to be the first Allen Iverson yep growing up from Southeast DC one of the things that propelled me to continue to strive for excellence was that I was always one like I never suffered from imposter syndrome because I always felt like I was defining a new image of what success could look like because there were no one there was I didn't have a mentor or someone to look at and say this is what a sports executive or entertainment executive or someone that's living a basketball lifestyle that doesn't dribble a ball yeah but still does all the things that a professional player does would look like and so for me I was always trying to Define that new image of success that brought and spoke to so all that's in the authenticity part but what makes the authenticity really connect is Allen was MVP scoring champion great in football great in basketball everyone had respect for played with heart yeah it made me great as the redefining I was valedictorian smart guy worked at some of the best Brands and so when you take that greatness plus the authenticity that's what really makes it cool because people want to associate with winners right and then I think the other thing the other word I would add in there that that Robin spoke to and I don't know if it's the right word but it's I would use it more as like grit so when you do Define what it is that you want to be or become or have that image you have to stand in it what yeah and you have to you have to stand like it can't waver right and so you know Allen's showing up like I'm not gonna be like Mike I'm wearing the white tee with the Yankee fitted with the Sims and yeah that's how I'm coming to the games and the NBA is like that's a 50 dress code now yeah because he's not gonna change and that's what made the Allure of what he represented so special for the culture because he was willing to have the grit to stand in it so now guys where they show up looking at games it's like wait a minute what did y'all talk like he only had on a white tee and some teams and y'all labeled that as a thug look regards are now barely wearing shirts coming in it's called fashion they know their Fashions we can have another concert but but that's the point so authenticity meets greatness meets grit is what makes it cool awesome and we just had a a short discussion a few minutes ago about keeping up with what's new keeping a post on the culture what's new what's exciting you kind of have to do that on the talent side so like as you're scouting people how do you think about what the future of a QB might look like or a running back how do you think about staying fresh and hip to the new talent coming in in layers we can kind of chop that down let's do it um I think first you talk about evolution of the game right and when I say evolution of a game is we can only take on the NFL level what we're getting from the Grassroots to high school to college yeah right and it's adjusting our eye it's knowing okay now in the era of now the transfer portal right um it could maybe look at look down upon if you were a player who transferred or played at two different colleges now when players are coming through the NFL draft now they may be at three schools yep I've seen it you know it's uh their pathway is different now and it's now it's adjusting our eyes because it all comes from the evolution of the athlete it's now you know the the communication with them it's the why before call it 10 years ago 20 years ago years ago 25 years ago if you talk told the player to do something they would just do it now um they want inclusion in the process you know um they especially in the football landscape it's it's newer than it is you know q and basketball in terms of the athlete empowerment um and for us you know as decision makers we have to adjust our lens um to treat these players fairly okay right so it's being in tune with the athlete I would say the messenger has to be believable right if you just have these bulletin board slogans and your idea of culture but you don't live it like I've been talking about you know living What You Preach you know for me uh I view it as I call it suffering with your staff you know if your directives are to do X Y and Z especially if you're in a new environment the buy-in comes quicker when you suffer with the staff to some degree you know you're not going to be able to do everything with them but teaching them hey you know what do you need to be on the road looking for in terms of player attributes okay um you know decorum in the office in terms of you know communicating with players um you know and say it's being a not just a worker I say I take titles out of it when I say at the end of the day you know our job is Solutions football Solutions work in the football space um you know so one day you may be a scout next day you may be uh Big Brother next day you may be a counselor yeah you know it's whatever you can do to make them the players the best version of themselves on game day all of us can be the best at what we do at our specific task job title Etc but we don't make the plays on Game Day in a nutshell keeping up with the evolution of the athlete and why it's important to keep a pulse on you know who they are know their origin story and you know and get them to the Finish Line it makes a difference that's awesome to see the executives thinking about how do we best support them in a number of ways because I don't know that that's always been the case and I think that's the point that you made so that's awesome to hear well the the thing is because the players is evolving just as a person like not everyone can separate the personal and professional right and as you know the player has more interests that are outward you know they're more open about what they want to do life after football or life after Sports you know in the off season on their off days um if you don't give them the tools to navigate it smart yeah you know smartly you know those Arenas um you know you're leaving things to chance where errors can come in and to me like these players in any sport they want to know that you're invested in them as a person not just a jersey number exactly yeah you know it's different from the you know the approach that was call it just I said 10 20 30 years ago yeah and I think you get the most back from the player from whether it's on the field whether it's in the building whether it's in the community when you show them you're willing to give more yourself um and that buy-in like I said that when you're willing to sweat with them yeah maybe it's not literal sweat but you're you're putting in that work Sweat Equity with them and it's doing things that are off the clock or not in your you know quote-unquote job description but you're helping their interests um you know you get that back tenfold what does that recruiting process look like for you like you say as a Latina woman and you didn't see a lot of people like you in the space what does recruiting others now look like coming into yeah Peloton well we were really intentional about making sure that I mean the ground floor is an expertise in Fitness right so you have to be a fitness professional but that's just like having shoes on your feet you know that's just very basic having a point of view a distinct point of view and being able to represent a community that you're proud of yeah that was really important to me and there is an X Factor it in any industry you know it when you see it and it's like I don't care who you are in the 20-minute audition I want to know who you are at 6am and you've already had an 80 hour week and when that right leg goes on I don't care if you're having a bad day who are you bringing with you into this community how are you holding space how are you protecting your energy are you a leader and thankfully we've really created a team that for with that is that that is the case I mean I always look at values create habits habits create culture and we can espouse values in a deck on a board in the locker room but the habits that they're building bringing with them and the point of view that they they filter those habits through are going to create the culture of our team and then that culture is going to create the larger Palestine culture and community so the recruiting process is trying as best as possible to drill into somebody's true energetic frequency and see if they have Synergy with the team because the work ethic is like you're going to hustle that's table State it's just like that exactly that's the knife in the fork yeah the meal hasn't even been served yet right I love that I'll let you lean in our habits I do that with my team as well that's one of the things I picked up throughout my years of playing sports is that the habits is ultimately what really truly defines your success yes without those habits you really don't have that success so the thing about habits is they're not super hard to create it's just about the commitment for a period of time I don't care what you're willing to do once what are you willing to do 100 000 times forever exactly Robin I see why people like taking your class I see it I would be motivated with what you just said I think it's more exciting to preach what you already practice than Practice What You Preach because it's like I'm living this yeah say that one more time you're preaching what you already practiced and propping that up as a priority rather than practicing What You Preach yeah because if I'm pre if I'm already living it and then I can say from a place of authority this is my point of view and this is the framework that has worked what's yours but you got to already be living it for me to pay attention so Nan what you've built in the kind of sports and Tech spaces is an overlay over a number of things so tell us a little bit about how the sleeper came about and why you saw it as a need in the market because fantasy is not new but you took a new perspective on it tell us a little bit about that yeah we when we started about 10 years ago there were already several fantasy players on the market the Yahoo is the espns of the world and in fact fantasy's been around for the better part of almost four decades now it started on pen and paper where people were you know using magazines to research stats so we were coming into a market that already had incumbents and we had to have a fresh perspective on how to break through and ultimately what led us to what we do is the realization that Fantasy by itself only Taps into a small Die Hard demographic but that the underlying Foundation of why people play and frankly why people enjoy sports is that they're craving a social experience with friends and what we were seeing was that over the evolution of social media that a lot of that engagement was getting fragmented off onto numerous non-dedicated platforms so somebody would go on to say espn.com read an article but all the long tail conversation would be in a text thread or a group chat somebody would watch a game and try to engage somebody on Reddit or on Twitter and have a conversation and we all know Twitter's very hard to have a conversation on and so what we realized was if we can build a platform we're at the foundation it's about that friend experience and the conversations that you have then you can start disrupting every aspect of sports not just fantasy sports but the content space as well and we started with fantasy leagues because that's a natural cluster of friends these games are typically played between 10 to 12 people in offices family members College classmates and so you're replicating Facebook social graph LinkedIn social graph and you're in life social graphs and building a social experience that otherwise didn't exist and by doing that and pursuing that route what it meant was our product was viral you had to use it with somebody else you had to invite other people and we've been able to amass over 5 million users now on the platform it's one of the fastest organically growing sports apps in the world what does the user base at sleeper look like I'd love to hear how that network is about as well because I think historically it's only looked one way of who does it um I would love to hear about your your base yeah yeah and maybe even before diving into the base we can talk about the history of fantasy um it used to be a really die-hard product uh stat nerds on pen and paper primarily male over the years it's actually evolved into a much more mainstream product that's been played in offices and college campuses with family members and so there has been a trend over time because of the intrinsic social nature of that product for it to be much more mass Market than a traditional Sports product we've actually made a specific emphasis to try to push that boundary even further one of the realizations when we started the company was that it was founded by four male Die Hard sports fans and so we were creating a product that put could potentially if we didn't diversify our thought and our our ideas go back towards that same demographic and so when we hired we specifically hired for an all-female non-sports design team we started and as a result of that process the team actually innovated a lot of new ideas and onboarding experiences that were able to tap up into their own experience because the onboarding experience was built by them for them and it was things like if I don't understand this how do I put you know contextual help into it if there's an area in the app which is confusing is there a community feature we can roll out where people can ask each other questions can we color code the app in a way where it's more General neutral and so that it's not something that would turn somebody off for the first time from a logo and a branding perspective can we not call ourselves something Kings or something like male dominated and can our logo look very neutral as well and by doing that we've actually pushed the envelope even further your average Sports app has about 10 percent uh female demographic on it we're at closer to 30 percent wow and continue to push those boundaries and we're also not just reaching more females we're also reaching a younger demographic as a result too this is the first interaction for them to enjoy sports in a way we're getting folks that you know the Middle School level picking at it for the first time and if they haven't had somebody introduce it to them they can actually self-walk through that onboarding process in the same way yeah so what I took from what you just said is that women make everything better absolutely I have a question do you you are did you all use the platform during March Madness one of my biggest frustrations with March Madness is when you fill out that bracket yeah there's nothing to do then after the first couple of games it's it's gone to whatever because you pick made the wrong picks but again as we were talking earlier what I ended up having to do what my family is we then start going game by game yeah because all our brackets are jacked up so it's like us waiting to see if whether our teams will make it to the chip they're not because they've already lost but we stay engaged around the March Madness aspect because we're now doing this smaller betting or push-ups whatever it is um for each individual game like if you guys applied it in that model fix it and fix it and that was especially true this year because after day one most brackets busted and people don't have a reason to engage anymore and so you'll see a natural drop off on pretty much every other platform where it's just about the bracket but in our version of March Madness there's a group chat and so communities are in it um not only playing the game but they're also chatting and having conversations and while we don't have a game design that allows you to pick up the bracket on day two if you if you've busted people were creating their own games in the group chats and challenging each other and so we saw long tail engagement through the tournament um and that that's the whole like ethos and concept we try to bring to every single game that we create is is it fun with somebody else and can we make it so that it's not just about the game it's about that experience yeah and then question for you you know you talk about the princetons of the world that that you know had the Cinderella run within that group chat can you create a game that's based around maybe supporting the the Cinderella story so like say it's uh you know call it um Princeton getting to the final four or to the elite eight after they've ruined your bracket but now it becomes like a team that you and your friends root for can you do that in terms of you know creating a new game where you know you're following one team yeah that's a great question Brandon and um this leads me to like the next stage of sleeper so what we realize is that um a lot of sports fans have really creative ideas of what they want to do in terms of their interactions with their specific group of friends and there's a thousand permutations of games that you could create on top of that um and what we realize is that we probably won't be the ones that make every single last one of them and so what we've done is we've created an API layer where other developers and folks with creative ideas can create the permutations of the games that they want and now there's about 100 developers building on sleepers apis that's cool and it's not just for sports it's people using kind of the fantasy construct and designing games that are like fantasy Bachelor yeah like fantasy Oscar where they're doing you know X permutation of a dynasty league with a different set of scoring settings and it's giving people the tools to create the long tail of the games that they want to play yeah I'm gonna do the Iron Chef one me and my wife so fans Drive everything no no Riders no classes no fans no teams no games there's nothing there tell me a little bit about um one how you all honor The Fan Experience in your work um but also like how do you reconcile something like fantasy where fans love fantasy like they live for it they bet money on it um but I heard a lot of players hate fantasy because it's like oh John Johnny's to get hurt today so he doesn't get any points right that's diametrically opposed to the well-being of an athlete how do you balance that so let's just talk about that that Fan Experience how do you honor the things that your fans want and keep them coming back but also honoring your your players in the experience that they have as well I think it's a misconception that players don't like fantasy I think players they don't like themselves marginalized and minimize in you know in the hopes of them doing better or doing worse sure in terms of their performance yep on a week-to-week day-to-day basis on fantasy um because I know a lot of players it allows them to engage in other sports like they can be players that are um on a football team that engage in Daily basketball fantasy or baseball or March Madness everybody exactly um so I think it's more just you know don't marginalize the athlete while you're you're just trying to have your fun but um talk about the fan engagement side I've been fortunate to work in two of the bigger um call it markets from New York in Philadelphia where the fan bases are passionate what's the craziest thing you've seen a fan do I need a story here I think probably after the Super Bowl win in 2017 we outrun a parade route and there's polls obviously you're going down Broad Street and uh there's a guy just you know stripped down to his underwear like ripped his clothes off and he got close enough to the bus and one of our players are like so now what it's like 10 degrees outside they had to oil the pose exactly exactly you know um or even just like this past year um the fandom with us going to the playoffs with the Giants uh someone that said hey you know I've been a lifelong Giants fan and uh it allowed me to get closer with my family because we had a reason on Sunday with a team doing well to be around the TV together you know in years past I was like oh okay well we lost this game or uh the the performances were up and down if now okay riding hey the wave it you guys are going to the playoffs okay uh Sunday we're all around the TV so now it forced family engagement yeah you know and I think when it comes down to you talk about the fan base a lot of it they the fans want to see themselves in the team they almost take on the environment the Swagger the attitude of the team they want to see that embodied in the city yeah and when I say the Giants you know our Mantra is smart tough Dependable you know uh a lot of people from tri-state area are National fan base you know they they can recognize what players um and I think when you that's true they go it makes you want to go get that Jersey it makes you want to show up at the game there's a sense of community that we take uh especially in the football atmosphere that we take pride in at the stadium where every Sunday or every game day you may have your tailgating spot and you know between Robin q and then they have their own tailgating spot and you almost build like your little tailgating Community right and it's like hey this week I'm bringing this dish man you're bringing this dish Robin you're bringing these drinks like and it's almost you have your little fam away from the family that allows you to you know root for a unified teams so that's why I think pushing football where you only eat it's not a year-long deal you almost have eight nine if you're lucky you go to the playoffs um more opportunities on a given I'll call it Sunday Monday Thursday if it's Thursday night game to really congregate do you think tailgating exists in football because there's less games I've always wondered why like is it so unique to that sport um I do I think it's almost like heightens the event because you know we got one week or one time a week to get to get together or the way the schedule May fall we may all get together on a Sunday we may not see each other for three weeks because the team's channel for two to three weeks right um so I was always wondering well that's one of the things I wish we could bring over yeah I think the fans get spoiled by um other sports where the the frequency right right you know you may have what two to three home games a week yes right um same thing with baseball you have you have a home Series so I just think the timing of the year um your Locale it all adds to the to The Fan Experience and the culture of the team so I want to talk a little bit about the business side of it so um a lot of your role Q focuses on like player IP and Licensing and other commercial opportunities um nil name image likeness um not new to the sports industry but a lot of changes from a college perspective for you what are some of the new Innovative kind of nil opportunities you're seeing gaming Esports Arena naming web 3 anything like that and then how are y'all planning for the future of of nil I want to ask you Robin I mean most beloved Peloton instructor of all time you've become known for your brand and these business opportunities and becoming an entrepreneur and you're writing books how do you think about the future of branding opportunities for other instructors and people who are in that sort of Industry so from my perspective the whole nil I think honestly it's long time overdue um from my perspective my players first type of guy and having college players have that ability to be able to do that I think is amazing for me I feel like from a professional side and the work that I do we do a lot around name image alignments like I said but it's around the collective yeah a group a group we call it the group license but I think in the future it's going to be I've been advocating that it's at some point it's going to be nild and the d stands for data small data so when you think about players and you'll be able to relate to this actually you will too people are your instructors and people that are on protons we're measuring everything right so they're measuring you know all the stuff that's happening all that data at some point is going to help power better Fantasy games it's going to help power better video games they're going to have power better metaverse games is going to help with better sport Tech you know we're all we're not all but a lot of us are wearing Apple watches we got the Rings we got all this other stuff that's constantly tracking what we do so I think the data and having players in control of that data to be able to help set you know establish their brands and their overall value for their IP through that data is something that's coming I am a strong believer in in technology and I think the the metaverse blockchain but specifically AI could play a huge role in some of the stuff that we're doing there's a conference that's happening here next week that's around the brands and AI coming together and how they use the different attributes of a brand and leverage AI in terms of being able to create unique products for that brand yep I think if you take that same concept and apply it to players and you take the insights the interest this data of players and apply it within the context of a Ai and allow AI to now spit out some of the things that people should be doing based on their interests and their their data I think you're going to get a lot of interesting types of developments in terms of merch and experiences yes and yeah those things that you can create Robin I'd love to hear about kind of nil and brand opportunities for somebody like you and how you flip that into being kind of a multi-modal mogul well I think my law background helped a lot I used to do IP litigation so I kind of have the old school contractual lawyer brain when I look at things and I would not have looked at myself like Robin NYC as a business had I not been a lawyer first um so that's like the brand new lawyer too yes undercover I call myself a reformed lawyer so I get it we're in the same fraternity I need to get a case together oh so there is like the classic IP that actually I think a lot of artists musicians athletes unless they have the right team behind them they just don't get it yeah you know my adage is like I'm gonna know my worth and add tax to it and I've always said that like when I left law there were brands that were like I want to pick your brain because I was running with crews in New York City we were doing meeting up at midnight with DJs and rappers and whatever on the Lower East Side and it was like very I mean people were like that's a commercial I'm like I know you know and so it was the coffee date that was to pick your brain by somebody who is much more well paid than me when I was leaving law with not a dollar and I said oh I'm going to use my billable models model from from law and now I'm just going to start calling myself a consultant and this is my fee right so that's where it's that planted the seed and then of course licensing contracts and things got a little bit more robust and intentional but that same framework is even more freeing in the web 3 context like if if somebody is a brand or Creator and they're not paying attention to the Creator economy and web three yes you are missing it totally from data from the data points from you can use I mean the technology that is going to it will enable us to unlock connection and Community as currency so much of the threads that we're pulling on today are really going to be built into the ecosystem of web3 already are starting to for sure um the Creator economy is really exciting to me because you know I've been building Community from my first followers My million follower on web2 platforms for over 10 years but it's disparate it's fragmented my content gets buried with algorithms it ends up being a numbers game that I don't necessarily want to play and they if my fans my most engaged fans can be day one stakeholders in a Creator economy and web3 that I own the IP and everything else that comes along with it let's go that's literally why I'm building Swagger society and it's going to be it's a lifestyle membership the first lifestyle membership club in web 3 and it's intended to drill into someone's habits and become someone's accountability partner totally separate from my role at Peloton but it's enabling me to reward my most engaged followers own those data points that content gate content in ways that I've not been able to and really engage with the community in ways that I haven't been able to and know that the IP is all mine I'm not the product of an Instagram that being a product of Instagram has helped me I'm part of the influencer economy yeah but I want to see what I want to write the next chapter so I think you know if we bring in these IP principles and and have thoughtful conversations ask the right questions right it's not just like sign me up here's my money give me a token absolutely not but I think that when we bring in these IP principles and the Frameworks that we've learned from influencer marketing and brand building and smartly and intentionally do it in web 3 we're going to be pretty Unstoppable so we're seeing athletes wear a number of different hats right they're starting Ventures they're investing in technology companies they're writing books Etc how important do you think it is that players do that and how are teams and unions and leagues helping them pursue those things I think you brought it up a little bit earlier but are there any particular things that you're like we have this sort of program that supports them if they want to start a business Etc yeah so Megan just from that standpoint talk about go life away from the field or life after the field for a lot of these players you know usually every team has a Player Development um program and it's trying to figure out you know based on the collective group hey what are they most interested in right now yeah whether it could be financial literacy to investment opportunities to whether it's Venture Capital whether it's hey I'm in the you know New York area and I'm interested in fashion or whatever that is um I think part of that is that's important for the athlete is capitalizing on that while I guess their star power is bright um why but you say that because if they're going into a new call it Avenue a new sector that they don't have any expertise in you know what they do have to offer though is their star power association with them and that's one thing I try to promote to the players is gain as much knowledge yeah during this period as you can because this is that gray area where you may not be an expert but your star power will get you in those rooms to soak up the knowledge that you can use towards getting uh you know becoming a potential expert or getting into that sector the thing I try to let them know there is a window you know Robin talked about timing the further you get away from the field from for the majority of that shirts the next wave will come in and your star will start to dimmer a little bit and as your star dims you know those access to those rooms aren't going to be as frequent so let's touch on tick just a little bit I think when it comes to sports and Athletics Etc people only associated with certain parts like how do we recover faster how fast the ball is going Etc but like there's a ton of Technology on the business side from like marketing ticketing Community Management Esports are there any things in particular that you all have seen on the tech side for for sport that's exciting that you think are we're loving this type of new platform things that are being built across you know across the vertical outside of just how do we do the sport better how do we do the business better I think one of the most transformative things for sports isn't necessarily new technology but it's social media uh and social media has given teams and athletes a microphone to be able to be their you know their selves and their brands and to be able to reach consumers directly in ways that they haven't be able to they haven't been able to before yeah the problem with social media 1.0 is that it's been broadcast model one to many and there's a lot of other ancillary problems that come with that because there's bullying there's ganging up on people it's hard to have actual one-on-one conversations I think what's exciting for me is this next wave of social media how do we take that concept of athletes and teams owning their own brand but now create one-to-one or even smaller close-knit relationships directly with the fan base that's something we're wrestling with we're trying to solve we're trying to solve some of the like the the moderation and the bullying issues around large format social media and we're trying to create channels or individual kind of one-on-one direct to Consumer relationships for athletes in this next wave as well any other fun take we're looking at uh VR and um potentially even things like Holograms one of the things we're I'm challenged with on my side of the business is basically my players are in season pretty much from September through June if you make it through the chip right and so brands that are looking to interact and engage players often trying to get them during the season when they're in their habits in their routines and they're playing mode like it's just it's hard and then they also have so many other interests and so the trying to find technology that will allow them to engage get close to the fans have this connection without leaving their home is of extreme interest to me because I think if I can unlock that kind of an experience for a player and and show a brand that it could still help with their selling itself through of the product or service that they're asking in this influence or a player to attach themselves to yeah it could be something really interesting so I'm really super focused on VR how hologram Ai and then web3 as Robin had mentioned just all those kind of things got it and just uh for us it's twofold I'd say from the performance standpoint um analytics and call it uh GPS data you know just in terms of making from the decision making process so you know we know whether it's tracking uh speed miles per hour whether it's Force plate a lot of these onboarding tools that we can use to see baselines on where players are when they come into our program that's one thing technology has given us a you know a large opportunity in terms of putting another tool in our box of how do we maximize the athlete and or how do we compare athletes Apples to Apples that may have come from different teams different environments and what's their growth opportunity right so that's one thing I think from the fan engagement standpoint especially in football it's great for the players because now the fans are getting a closer Glimpse from the business side getting an insight into players and seeing who they are Under The Helmet you know it's not like basketball where they're you know football player could be walking down the street and you know more often than not you may just walk past them and not know that has happened to me one of my favorite college players from Alabama we were on a plane together I had no idea yeah and then my boss was like you know that's you know normal civilians yeah so I think the biggest thing technology is helping is Bridging the communication whether it's the business side helping fan engagement for the players and then the players just for really branding of themselves of just having more of a visible presence yep well for us you know from the Peloton perspective it's maintaining that visceral endorphin filled connective tissue I've seen on a global scale honestly people's lives change in the tune of millions because they're consistently for the first time yeah plugging into a fitness practice so the more we can utilize relevant data points what gets measured gets managed right so it's like what data points are relevant how can we make this how can we create some literacy around this stuff and so I'm really excited with Peloton working you know I'm within the content team but of course working with our product team and our ux and seeing like where are we going to take it like you know I can't speak on the future of product Innovations right now but I think it's going to be really exciting to prioritize because when you're on in the in the best possible watching a game watching a concert listening to something that gives you that head to toe feeling of like holy I'm in it yeah I mean we really do that every single day at Peloton and the more that the technology improves around that and that we can serve data points to our members and our communities that create even more stickiness and consistency around habits that's I think that's chapter two and I'm excited to be a part of it next question this one can be a little controversial here we go favorite athlete and why oh any sport any space can I give two no no of course you can of course you can all right I'll go first and it can be like a right now and a historical one okay yeah so so for me growing up my favorite athlete at the time was Sugar Ray Leonard because I grew up he was a boxer out of Palmer Park Maryland so he was like the the God for those of us who grew up in the DMV and so every time he fought we felt like he was representing all of us in terms of our city and um he was just a very graceful very classy um boxer uh became a businessman you know it was just super successful on in and out of his sport so I would say growing up that's who it was but then I've had the great Fortune because of my basketball lifestyle I've worked with Allen Iverson but many people know for about 12 13 years just I know right being able to see that it's the new it's the old AI because like now every time someone says AI talk about artificial intelligence I'm always like wait what are they talking about so anyway but um that sounds like a brand no it is waiting oh it's definitely coming it's definitely coming it's definitely coming exactly so but he would like just having a closeness that I had been able to be a a co-pilot for his most formative years the beginning to really when he stopped playing um being that co-pilot I just saw like the The Good the Bad the Ugly of what sport can be and especially from someone that was both MVP and Rookie of the Year and had all you know the other cultural things that went along with it um it was just a great overall learning for me and definitely opened up my eyes in terms of what the real possibility around Sports could be for the world you know so I've got more than two I guess first a shout out to all the folks that use Athletics the platform to do good culturally and socially so it looks like Jesse Owens Jackie Robinson Muhammad Ali in terms of my contemporaries it's two people it's kobeat I'm grew up being a usually your spam and so Mamba mentality and bringing your best self to work every single day is something that's been inspirational for me as a co-founder I've had days where I've struggled and I've had to push through and I look back and I think about what you know Kobe had to go through and Kobe would have done in those situations um so he's been a guiding line in terms of inspiration and the other one is Jerry Lynn you know that Ron and Insanity here in New York uh Dave a nerdy undersized Asian kid something to acquire you know we can do that too because they saw something short and that did it I think the most interesting athletes from my person because I didn't grow up watching sports I was allergic so the stats my husband will be like yo this is dope that another Nick's Next another okay fine the Paradigm shifting athletes are the ones that I am in love with yeah flojo for me so much Mantra when I first started ultra running was sweat with swagger like show up looking good for victory and then when I recalled the imagery of flojo who was like on the track just never met a body suit she didn't slay you know I was like oh wow like that is her and her full embodiment of power and then for me a second uh Paradigm shifting athlete is Allison Felix like what she's done for mothers of course her athleticism is top-notch but for me the paradigm shift that she has held on to and and pushed forward as a mother in renegotiating contracts and creating her shoe company um and a third one that I'll mention similarly in that Paradigm shifting vein is Tia Clair to me so she's a a CrossFit athlete she's one I think five or six times the CrossFit Games yeah but what has really made me pay attention to her recently is that she is slaying the barbell very visibly pregnant and I still do all my barbell work I teach at Peloton I'm on the bike I'm picking up dumbbells and I still get the comments and the side eyes so I think it's really important to elevate and shine a light on the folks who are doing it differently doing it their way and then bringing people into the fold so those are my three and I heard you're still teaching three classes a day four classes a day train on average two three hours a day so you are showing people the things that inspired you through those women so you that's the way that it it works yeah I love that yeah breaking boundaries similar to what you said man yeah yeah so we had two two eight Fernandez which is also why Nan is a good found under because he's a rule breaker what do you think Brandon so I'm not going to give you more than one oh but I'm going to double dip because I'm going to give my guys going to be someone that transcended multiple Sports Bo Jackson so for me you know Bo knows when you hear Bo knows even if you didn't play sports uh you can identify with the shoes when his shoes are still a part of culture right now but uh for bub for me Beau was the epitome of bigger faster stronger Bo could run around you he could run through you on the football field then you see him with the Kansas City Royals and he saw him with that powder blue on and uh you know he could hit for power and then can run around the bases for Speed and to me a short-lived career but in a vacuum high level Excellence so you know when I think of beating somebody at their best while you're at your best like I think of bow and a vacuum and I just think of the confidence the bravado he had had almost silent Swagger yeah and then you know he has a a shoe that can resonate with 16 17 18 year olds that have no idea who he is but they like the shoe so that's why it's uh Bo Jackson for me I love that and something really interesting that all three of you brought up was around this culture and this swag that can be associated with certain people and that's so much of what the cultural leadership fund is about these cultural contributions that people make that push places forward um and even though this isn't about me I'm gonna say mine because I think it's a little bit different from each of yours so I'm from Alabama y'all know this huge college football fan and my kind of first memories college football and NFL but my first memories are of my dad watching and my dad was always all about the black quarterbacks and he's like we support the teams with the black quarterbacks and the black coaches and all of that so growing up that was always really important to me I go getting excited when I saw a black quarterback I'm like yes breaking barriers and really like changing what it looks like right and so today when I see the Jalen's and the Russells and the Patrick Mahomes and the Mike Vicks back in the day like that is so encouraging to me because that's an evolution well that is our time thank you all so much for joining me today I loved how you laid out the things that are working in the sports industry the things that you hope to get better that you hope to add and my goal is that this conversation today inspires somebody to go out and build we're excited to to continue thinking about sports and what does the future look like and thank you all for being a part of that thank you thanks for having us [Music]

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Length: 61min 54sec (3714 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2023