Kevin Owens knows a thing or two about playing basketball overseas. The 7-footer who recently hung up the hightops caught up with fellow Euro-vet Brandon Jennings who recently partnered with MISSION Athletecare™ in promoting their groundbreaking and game-changing Court Grip™ technology, "a proprietary, patent-pending formula that is scientifically engineered to enhance traction and combat the negative effects of dusty, worn-out courts." Fitting since such courts seem to be the only place these days locked out NBAers can catch a pickup game.
Jonah, with the distinction of being both a baseball and financial journalist, was the perfect choice to pen a book that looked at how three baseball neophytes (two owners and their GM) took the lessons and strategies they learned on Wall Street to turn the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays from a perennial cellar- dweller to a legitimate contender in the powerhouse AL East.
Playing a central roll in the story of the Rays is former owner Vince Naimoli, whom Keri paints as squandering all goodwill the had in the St. Pete’s community upon the team's inaugural season due to his penny-pinching, ego-maniacal ways. He dug a hole out of which his successors are still struggling to climb.
In addition to several of those personalities (new and old management) and their quirks and approaches, Jonah talks about the process of researching and writing a book on a team that now prides itself on secrecy.
We also talk about some of the baseball philosophies employed by those individuals such as the Ray’s practice of “arbitrage,” which - in a nutshell - is signing young players for long term, inexpensive deals with clauses giving the team a ton of leverage and value.
Jonah was able to find a Michael Lewis-esq balance in packaging a business book into a baseball book without drifting too far in either direction so that it would off-put partisans, and may even will leave you rooting for the Rays.
Hot damn! It's been a while! Not since Amy K. Nelson told us how lame we were have we been able to get a podcast in.
We blame, of course, BwB3...a great success if we do say so. Don't take our word for it, ask this guy. And these folks.
Our guest this week is is the VP of Business Development at BleacherReport.com, David Nemetz.
B/R kicked off the BwB3 experience with a bang, hosting our kickoff party with flowing Guiness at The Fifty/50. David was then a member of the Localization panel at the main event, and we expand a bit on that conversation.
Since its inception, Bleacher Report has gone through a number of tweaks and facelifts, none more significant than the recent addition of Brian Grey, formerly of Yahoo and Fox Sports, as their new CEO.
We talk with David on a number of topics pertaining to B/R's position in the industry, its benefits to its members and where it goes next.
Our guest this week a award-winning journalist Amy K. Nelson. Amy covers major league baseball for ESPN.com and is part of the site’s Enterprise team. Born and raised on the north shore of Massachusetts and a graduate of Hampshire College, Amy has been covering professional sports for close to 10 years.
(Image: ESPN.com)
She writes both investigative and long-form pieces for the site, and among her recent highlights is a piece on the timeline of death of Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and a breaking news story and in-depth feature on Alex Rodriguez’s infamous cousin who allegedly provided him steroids. She also served as a moderator for ESPN’s First Take program, chatting with fans online and relaying their comments live on the show, and has appeared on SportsCenter, ESPNews, Baseball Tonight and Outside The Lines.
Amy talks about her path to ESPN, starting with her decision to forgo a career as a photo-journalist and dive head first into sports journalism. Admittedly addicted to Twitter, she describes the role social media plays in complimenting her work.
She and Chris, two card-carrying members of Red Sox Nation, talk about Boston's prospects for the up-coming year, their thoughts on some faces familiar to Fenway - namely Nomar and Mike Lowell, and whether this is finally the breakout year for minor league superstar and major league enigma Clay Buchholz.
Finally, in one of the most groundbreaking revelations on the BwB show, Amy reveals the connection between Boof Bonser and the single greatest moment of her professional career.
We kick the show off this week with a very pointed voicemail we received from the incomparable Softball Guy, who was not all that thrilled with our guest selection this week: Matt Sebek from our podcasting partners JoeSportsFan.com.
Long before partnering up on the Internets waves, JoeSportsFan was a everyday read for HHR.
Matt's experience as an online programmer has helped take the site's brand to a new level of online media that includes blogging, and the incorporation of both audio and video.
About a month ago, JSF launched JoeSportsFanSTL.com which focuses on sports in the site's home town of St. Louis, and puts out a weekly Basketball Jones-esq video segment covering the latest hot topics surrounding the city's teams and athletes in the offbeat tone JSF fans have come to know and love.
The city-centric, or "hyper-local," approach to online sports coverage is one we have been keeping a close eye on leading up to BwB3 in light of national companies like ESPN and Comcast, and regional ones like NESN and SNY going full force into blogging and multimedia/online platforms. We talk about how this could affect team and city-based sites, including the new JSF STL.
The guys that run the site have also dabbled in AM radio, and Matt talks about the advantages to working online as opposed to the terrestrial waves.
For any aspiring podcasters, and those bloggers looking to attempt video, this week is a must listen, as Matt let's you know from his experience what steps you can take to make your show(s) better and differentiate them from the field that is rapidly saturating.
Our guest this week is Phil from the multifaceted men's website Gunaxin.com.
Phil has been a longtime friend of HHR and, more so, the Blogs With Balls conferences, having attended and been vocal at both the New York and Vegas shows.
In Vegas, we had a great panel conversation on whether or not bloggers should be granted the same access and treatment that teams and leagues afford traditional media and journalists. On that panel, Yahoo!'s Puck Daddy Greg Wyshynski - among the most high profile and respected hockey bloggers on the web - brought up the fact that the NHL has embraced new media to circumvent the lack of coverage MSM has allotted the sport. Specifically, the Washington Capitals, thanks in large part to their new-media savvy owner, is regarded as one of the most progressive franchises in terms of blogger credentialing. Phil, who blogs at the Fansided Caps blog Capitals Outsider, is among those select few sports bloggers in any sport that covers games from the press box.
Recently, his actions in the press area drew the attention and criticism from the Internets, the team and even Wyshinski...actions that eventually lead to his suspension from the press box.
With almost 3 weeks to digest the incident, Phil reflects on his actions, the reactions, and the hypocritical treatment in relation to his Verizon Center nemesis Mike Milbury.
Moving on to Gunaxin, Phil talks about how his unique background has aided in positioning the site among the fastest growing men's general interest sites, how and why the Gunaxin decided to dabble in podcasting, and its recent launch of Gunaxin Links - a direct and men's focused alternative to Reddit.
A recurring theme is Phil's appreciation for the online community. He credits folks he met at BwB (Dan Levy, Matt Sebek and Gary Vaynerchuk) as being influential in Gunaxin moving into many of the areas it has, and credits the conference itself as helping facilitate some of the A-list guests they've gotten to interview.
Welcome to the "man" episode. We focus on "things guys like" with Guyism.com and chat with the incomparable Sarah Spain.
Lucas is away this week in sunny Hawaii, so filling in once again is Chris Illuminati. Combining Illuminati's new segment at HHR with Lucas' Ballsy Blog of the Week, we bring on Guyism.com's Isaac to answer 8 Softball Questions.
What happened to the World of Isaac?
Why do women read men's sites?
Why do people get so worked up over internet articles?
What Internet trend will he never understand?
Who epitomizes Guyism.com?
What's more unmanly than creating Internet viruses?
How unmanly are staged wedding party pictures?
What is something every man needs?
Keeping with our theme, Chicago's own Sarah Spain joins us. Four years removed from auctioning herself off on eBay to get to the Super Bowl, Sarah is now rubbing elbows on the red carpet at the big game with NFL legends in a journalistic capacity.
Sarah has been our eyes and ears on the ground in the planning process of BwB3, and really epitomizes a lot of things we intend to focus on in June.
One thing we've worked hard on incorporating is a more diverse perspective at the shows. Among them is having more women participate. Like previous guest Jemele Hill, Sarah talks about the role her gender plays as a sports blogger and journalist. Ivy league educated, she talks about how she balances being a woman in a male-dominated genre with her talent, background and work product. She offers her advice to female bloggers and talks about what they can expect along their respective paths, which could include a couple of creeps and stunts like this:
Sarah also has worked in various platforms including web, radio and now television - both locally and for national companies. She also talks about the professional advantages of online accessibility and social media.
In lieu of Skyped Up, as the queen of Chicago sports, we put her on the spot and ask us to talk about some of her favorite Windy City team-specific blogs and bloggers.
Lucas has long been an advocate that the future of sports blogging lies in content producers adopting more than just the written word and dabbling in audio and video. We kick off the week talking a little about some folks who do the latter quite well.
Our ballsy blog of the week belongs to our good friends at The Global Sports Fraternity who did an absolute phenomenal job creating original, entertaining content at the Super Bowl in Miami.
Most notably, GSF's Henry Lowenfels gave Lions QB Matt Stafford the business at the Gatorade Fitness Lab.
Best is the co-founder (with his brother Zach, a web designer) and senior editor of the FanSided.com sports network as well as the site that launched the network, Arrowhead Addict.
What sets FanSided apart from its competitors is the family-like business approach that Adam has taken to advancing it. Adam talks about the progression from blogging on his Chiefs site to creating the original make-up of FanSided as an NFL blog network to one encompassing multi-sports and housing 135 different sites. He taps into the importance of forging strategic partnerships, like he has with Yardbarker.com/Fox Sports and CBS Sports.
While everyone's looking at staying ahead of the curve and taking advantage of the "next big thing" to market themselves or their products, we bring on two people who have been cashing in on the first big thing - email.
We are joined by "the third head of the Blogs With Balls three-headed monster," Kyle Bunch. Kyle aggregates his Daily Bunch right into subscribers' inboxes. We ask him the hows and the whys.
While we have him on, we thought what better time than to finally let people know the venue of BwB 3. You'll have to listen to find out.
Our guest this week is Aaron Karo. You might remember getting "Ruminations" emails at some point over the course of the last dozen or so years. Hell, you might still get them.
With the success of his electronically disseminated tales of college, Karo was able to forgo his Wall Street career in favor of one on the road (and rich in adventure) as a standup comedian, author and a business-owner whose product is himself.
Ruminations is now in book form ("...on College" and "...on Twentysomething Life"). He has another book now out "not intended for married people" - I'm Having More Fun Than You. You can also find his comedy album "Just go Talk to Her" on iTunes - recorded live in Boston on the night before Chris' single worst hangover, ever.
We talk a little about sports and a lot about his online marketing strategy and tools and multi-platform approach.
Today marks the triumphant return of the Ballsy Blog of the Week, which fittingly goes to the quartet of Chad Ochocinco, Chris Cooley, Ray Rice and Darnell Docket for their unprecedented news team coverage along with Jake & Amir during Super Bowl week. we highlight it for the fact that not only is the group (collectively known as the OCNN News Team) downright hilarious, but the project's sponsor - Motoblur - does an amazing job integrating their product into the viral videos in a manner that compliments, rather than takes away, from the videos' entertainment value.
I have seen the future. Take note, advertisers.
Staying in Miami, we bring on on-location guest Joe Fortenbaugh of National Football Post to talk Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, trade rumors, McNabb/Favre speculation and how the site and its unique staff have quickly become an inside source for pro football news, analysis and insight.
Prior to joining on with NFP full-time and focusing on fantasy football posts, Joe worked as an NFL agent at JB Sports for three years while earning his degree from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.
Shifting gears from NFL playoff and Super Bowl talk, we bring on guest Lang Whitaker, executive editor at SLAM Magazine, columnist at Hawks.com and author of a forthcoming memoir on Bobby Cox and growing up a Braves fan.
Lang talks about the unique relationship the magazine was able to develop with the NBA's biggest stars and teams.
As someone who dabbles and excels in and on so many platforms, Lang brings insight to how writing in general is affected by the immediacy of the Internet age:
"The more you write online, the better a writer it makes you. You learn to deal with immediate reactions from people. You understand what the audience looks for in stories...But at the same time, I learned a long time ago you cant 100% give in to what people want you to do. At some point you stay true to yourself and you hope the audience likes what you're doing."
Keep an eye out for Searching for Bobby Cox, due out February 2011, which is a Julie and Julia-esq memoir of lessons Lang's "learned about life by watching Bobby Cox managing the Braves."
This week we focus on sports fans and are joined by not one, but two very special guests.
First, we talk with Hollywood royalty - actor Scott Caan, son of James and admittedly most known for his roll as Tweeder in Varsity Blues. (This is actually the second person from the film we have had on the show, having talked with director Mike Tollin back in October).
Scott is one of the official spokespeople for Monster.com's NFL Fandemonium initiative.
For the second year, "Monster and the NFL have teamed to find the DOF, this year expanding the promotion to allow fans to participate in deciding who becomes the next Director of Fandemonium. The DOF promotion inspires the most zealous football fans to compete for the dream “job” of serving as a fan ambassador for Monster and the NFL with special access at a series of marquee events throughout the 2010 NFL season."
The events in which the new DOF will have the opportunity to play a key role include:
NFL Draft: Announce a pick at the 2010 NFL Draft (April 2010)
NFL Kickoff: Act as backstage talent wrangler at the 2010 NFL Kickoff concert (September 2010)
NFL International Series: Participate in on-field introductions at the 2010 International Series Game (October 2010)
NFL Thanksgiving: Serve as an on-field broadcast liaison for the NFL Network 2010 Thanksgiving Game (November 2010)
NFL Super Bowl: Join the coin toss ceremony at Super Bowl XLV (February 2011)
NFL Pro Bowl: Select a play from the sidelines during the 2010 Pro Bowl (January/February 2011)
Publish blog posts on NFL.com and meet with top NFL executives
We talk with Scott about his involvement with the program, his career and his own athletic upbringing.
Next we are joined by former Clinton White House, Congress staffer David Goodfriend who heads up the bi-partisan sports fan advocacy group, Sports Fan Coalition (SFC). The SFC is the American sports fan’s advocate in the Washington, D.C. public policy arena and around the country for a fair return to the fans for public resources used in sports; and fair access to sporting events at the game and in the media.
With David we talk about how and why it started, what its focus is, and who is it comprised of. We also discuss specific issues the coalition is addressing including the Comcast/NBC merger and blackouts, specifically in regard to how these things directly affect fan and whether the Coalition (as an extension of fans themselves) have real power in affecting the outcome of business decisions and public policy.
Goodfriend is also co-host of "Left Jab" on XM Satellite Radio and was a co-founder and EVP/General Counsel of Air America Radio.
Without further ado, we finally tip our hand and offer a few details on the location and time for Blogs With Balls 3.0. Listen to the podcast to find out where and when, and sign up for more information on the BwB Site.
The book makes its official release on January 19, so go get yourself one.
This week's guest is John Christie, who serves in the dual role of EVP of Content Partnership with XOS Digital and as General Manager of the SEC Digital Network.
The company and conference made waves last summer when the New York Times ran a piece that highlighted their seemingly restrictive policy that made it difficult for bloggers and fans alike to share and distribute SEC content. Since that time, we've followed the SEC's progression and the role XOS has played in it on the Blogs With Balls blog, and have also maintained a steady and honest dialect with the company's representatives. We also conferred with some top college football bloggers to get their thoughts. Most noted the lack of functionality and embeddablity of video and accused the SEC as serving as a clearinghouse, and hoarding and filtering content.
While the SEC's policy may not be at the level bloggers would like to see it, John indicates that it is constantly evolving and they are taking feedback seriously.
A first step they say is the recent availability of the SEC Digital Video Widget. Christie tells us about what the widget entails and specifically if and how it might address these previous blogger criticisms.
We appreciate his willingness to address bloggers' concerns head-on and we came away with better understanding of both why and how the policies are being implemented.
Says John:
"It was never about keeping the content from the fans. It was about developing that comprehensive strategy to get it out there to the fans through all these different mechanisms."
Our guest this week is The Big Lead's Jason McIntyre.
TBL's combination of news, opinion, media oversight, and pop culture has enabled Jason to position it as one of the most popular independent sports blogs on the web, and parlay it into a full-time career - with a little help from the likes of Jason Whitlock and Colin Cowherd.
He talks about the site's creation and growth, his personal background and the role it's played in TBL's success, and addresses the online tit-for-tat that comes with its success.
In a nod to the site's marriage of sports and entertainment, we've Skyped him up with "Name that Celebrathlete."
Lucas is South of the border this week, so we get a pinch hit from HHR co-founder @ChrisIlluminati.
Chris has a harem of sites that we talk about, but also will soon be a published author with his NSFW-titled A**holeology that's due out in January.
Our guest is MetsBlog.com's Matthew Cerrone. Matthew is a full-time blogger who, despite an advertising agreement between the site and the New York sports cable station SNY, fully owns his product with complete editorial control over content.
Cerrone talks about how he was able to turn what started as a hobby and a way to follow his team when living out of market into his full-time job. We also talk about the Mets' prospects for this coming season and their focus during the current Winter Meetings.
We get a very interesting perspective on sports and media from author, producer, columnist, speaker and professor Dave Hollander. After going from music promotion to interviewing various legendary sports figures (whom we quiz him on in Skyped Up) and compiling the conversations in 52 Weeks: Interviews with Champions!, Hollander has been a columnist for AOL Sports, The Huffington Post, SI.com, New York Press, Interview and Penthouse (among others).
He is also an adjunct professor at the New York University Tisch Center for Sports Management, where he teaches a graduate course on Sports Management that "focuses on the marketing concepts and strategies involved in developing and implementing initiatives for sports and leisure products" with "emphasis is placed on positioning, programming sub-strategy, distribution, pricing strategies, regional sports networks, managing media, the Internet, building relevance for younger generations, and the unique nature of non-profit marketing."
It's a very candid conversation on what journalism as a whole has become and an uncensored look at online media from someone who has both practiced in the medium and teaches about its relationship to marketing.
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(Amazon)