The Life Story

As early as my teenage years at San Francisco’s Lowell High School, I knew I wanted to be a content producer. I had two passions at the time: sports and writing. That motivated me to join our award-winning high school newspaper The Lowell and start honing my writing, editing and reporting skills. I learned editorial judgment and how to navigate a fast-paced newsroom. From that point on, I was on a clear career path. I was promoted to Sports Editor, then Editor-in-Chief. I repeated the process when I moved on to college at the University of California, San Diego: Reporter to Editor to Editor-in-Chief. As I approached graduation in 2008, I realized that print journalism didn’t have the brightest future. Expanding my skills to other distribution methods was a prerequisite to success. I interned at a local TV station that covered the San Diego Padres and gained real-world experience that prepared me to enter the workforce full time.

After graduation, I joined a fantasy sports/stock market concept called OneSeason as Employee No. 3 and got a crash course in start-up culture. I wore multiple hats until the company eventually folded, which led me to move on to two roles that would shape the early stages of my sports media career. I worked two part-time jobs: one with the San Francisco Giants and another with their regional sports network, Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, which also covered the Oakland A’s, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders, Golden State Warriors, San Jose Sharks and Stanford/Cal collegiate sports.

I learned the ins and outs of production through those roles. At the Giants, I learned all about in-stadium game presentation from their Senior Director of Production and Entertainment Chris Gargano, who would hire me to be his Director of Social Media at the New York Jets seven years later. At CSN Bay Area, I soaked up all aspects of the TV business, from printing scripts to rundown creation to field producing features. I eventually landed a full-time role with CSN Bay Area but moved away from the linear product and dedicated myself to the up-and-coming digital offering. Before I came aboard, the CSN Bay Area website was nothing more than a promotional arm and a hosting service for TV programming listings. After finalizing our strategy, we were beating everyone else in the market to breaking news and in-depth analysis with a content offering that focused on packaging written word with photo and video content. This was in 2010, right as the San Francisco Giants started a run of three World Series titles in five years. I split my time between covering the team as a beat reporter in the field and working the desk as the website’s web producer.

After five years with CSN Bay Area, now called NBC Bay Area following Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal, I was ready for a new challenge. I was approached about becoming the Managing Editor of the local sports radio station KNBR’s undeveloped website. I replicated what had worked at NBC Bay Area and addressed all the pain points. My resources weren’t the same but suddenly, at the age of 27, I was a strategic decision-maker and people manager.

At KNBR.com, I led a small staff and tried to compete with my former employer for scoops, video views and web traffic. I encouraged my team to take calculated risks that more established media outlets were afraid of. It paid dividends as we increased our web traffic by 500% (6 million unique visitors, 13 million page views in 2015), social following by 200% (+ 220K on Facebook, 82K on Twitter, 35K on Instagram), live radio stream tune-in by 730% and revenue by 300% ($2.2 million). Our approach to digital content and subsequent monetization strategy was so successful that our parent company, Cumulus Media Inc. adopted it as the blueprint for its entire suite of radio properties (428 stations, 87 media markets).

I had no plans to leave KNBR or my hometown of San Francisco until the aforementioned Chris Gargano asked me if I’d consider a move to the East Coast to lead the digital/social content efforts under him at the New York Jets. The opportunity to work under the NFL umbrella in an unrivaled media market was too good to pass up. I passed the interview process and packed up my things to start a new life across the country.

The two seasons I spent with the Jets were as valuable as any in my life. I learned the best way to work within a cross-functional team, making sure that our content strategy aligned with what was coming out of the marketing and public relations departments. I focused on making sure our fans’ desktop and mobile web experience was seamless. I challenged myself to step up our content presentation so that we could compete with the incredible offerings from around the NFL. Most importantly, I grew as a people manager. Often, the most talented creative professionals require a different management style. I learned that firsthand at the Jets, collaborating with other content creators with different skills to produce incredible work for social, digital and in-stadium. My team made a point to create content that could drive revenue. We brainstormed franchises that could be put in front of sponsors and we met with potential business partners that were committed to a deal but didn’t have a concept in mind. And we delivered, increasing sponsored content revenue from $1.5 million to $2.2 million from 2016 to 2017. We were on pace to drive even more revenue in 2018, but that’s when the XFL opportunity presented itself.

“Why would you leave the NFL for the XFL?”

If I had a dollar for every time I got that question in October of 2018, I could fund my own startup football league.

The XFL was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, folding the league and terminating all employees in April of 2020. You would think this development would vindicate those asking me the aforementioned question, that I’d regret that bold decision with the benefit of hindsight. You’d be wrong.

At the time I was weighing the offer from the XFL, I approached the decision with a traditional pro/con list. All the challenges I was facing but couldn’t solve for would be addressed with a clean slate:

1. The NFL restricted its teams’ use of in-game highlights. I could write a whole new social media policy.

2. The Jets didn’t like an edgy social media tone. I could tell the 8 XFL teams to be as edgy as they wanted. And be the first professional sports league to develop a more aggressive voice.

3. The Jets had finite staffing resources, especially when it came to dedicating video resources to social. I could build a forward-thinking departmental structure and make sure that every video producer at the XFL was dedicated to social.

4. The NFL and the Jets were hyperfocused on metrics and comparative rankings with other NFL teams. I could make sure that numbers were important but taken with a grain of salt so creatives could focus on being creative.

5. The NFL -- and many other leagues and teams -- have an access issue. I could make sure that XFL players and coaches knew that content creation was part of their job description.

I started with the XFL as the Senior Director of Social Media and Content — and Employee No. 16 — on Dec. 3, 2018. Two days later the league, led by Vince McMahon and Commissioner Oliver Luck announced the eight cities that were getting a new team: New York, DC, LA, Seattle, St. Louis, Dallas, Houston and Tampa Bay.

After managing that announcement, I started putting pen to paper on the master plan. First step: find good talent. I was conducting 15 interviews a week to staff up at our headquarters in Stamford, CT and our eight teams: social platform managers, videographers, content directors, analytics/strategy leads and more. With the team starting to come together, we ramped up our content efforts as the XFL hit a series of tentpole events: team name/logo reveal, rule change announcement, uniform unveiling, live streamed draft. Then we got to training camp and we really started humming. My team was churning out high-quality content all day, every day and it was starting to resonate. Our social growth was staggering. We reached 3 million cumulative followers by kickoff on Feb. 8, 2020. From Feb. 1 to Mar. 20, when the XFL season was officially canceled, we made 14K posts, garnered 800 million impressions, had a fan base excited to engage with us 22 million times and racked up 295 million video views.

We also created the most authentic sponsored content, as our lucrative deal with Bud Light Seltzer led to moments like this and this and this. Because the fans never tired of beer content, we also created the legend of the Beer Snake. But we weren’t just an alcoholic beverage promotional arm. We had fun with memes, we showcased our players in a positive light, we were informative and, most importantly, everything we did was to serve our fans. Numbers don’t lie and our growth speaks for itself:

Final XFL social growth numbers under my leadership (18 months):

Twitter: 75K to 400K
Instagram: 49K to 613K
Facebook: 40K to 222K
TikTok: N/A to 345K
Snapchat: 5K to 250K
YouTube: 5K to 56K
LinkedIn: 3K to 31K

Most of all, I’m proud of the young professionals I discovered, nurtured and set up for success. The numbers above are specific to our league social handles, but all eight teams were doing their own impressive numbers under my guidance. While disappointed that the team I formed is no more and sad that the XFL didn’t get a chance to finish out a promising first season, more than anything I’m excited about what comes next. I live and breathe content and am a native to the social/digital space and know I can take what I’ve learned so far and apply it to a new challenge.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! And let’s connect!

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(TL;DR? Download my resume instead.)

ACTIVITIES AND AWARDS

·     XFL nominated for “Best in Sports Social Media” (Sports Business Journal – 2020)

·     “40 Under 40” list of top brand marketers (Brand Innovators – 2018)

·     Jets named “Most Innovative Sports Team” (SportTechie – 2017)

·     Speaker: Hashtag Sports (NYC - 2019), Data & Fan Engagement Series (Dubai – 2018), iSport Connect Master Class (London – 2018), Intl. Sports Chamber of Commerce (NYC – 2017), Sports Innovation Network (San Francisco – 2017)

·     Guest lecturer, Columbia University and New York University (2018-present)