The Missing Analyst: Why No One is Doing Sports Business Coverage Right

Speaker A: Welcome back to Sportonomics. Today we're sitting down with Sid and Siraj, the co founders of the Fourth Quarter, a sports business media company that they started in a basement while one of them was recovering from knee surgery. Now, these guys have been best friends since before Siraj was even born. And seven months ago, they went all in on building what they describe as the missing analyst grade coverage of the sports and entertainment business world. In this episode, we get into what it actually looks like to raise venture capital as a content creator, what they think is missing from sports business media. And honestly, Jake and I just spent a good chunk of time giving these guys advice about how they can do this thing. Well, enjoy the conversation. I think it makes sense to start with how you two met. That probably provides a lot of context for what you do now, but I know there's a bit of a backstory. You didn't just meet on, uh, the streets of New York City, did you?

Speaker B: No, we didn't. Siraj, you might have some color to it, but it's actually pretty interesting. I don't know how many people have ended up starting a company with their childhood best friend. Um, I don't even know if childhood best friend does it justice. There's like a picture somewhere in a picture book of me at, ah, Siraj's mom's baby shower before he was even born. So we go that far back? Um, yeah. Now, we grew up together in Georgia, three or four houses down from each other, uh, and stayed best friends, uh, throughout life, uh, throughout college. We went different colleges. Siraj went to Penn, I was at Georgia Tech. And, um, yeah, nights and nights and weekends, uh, we were both in Georgia, um, after I graduated. And Siraj was in his. Going into his last semester at Penn, and he had a freak accident to his knee. And he was just in his basement. I was at home trying to build another company in the space, and we just spent time. I just was giving him company in his basement. And there was only so many movies you could watch during the sports off season. So, um, we had this long shot goal of both of us having successful careers individually and then having enough money one day to go buy a professional sports team. And we were like, okay, well, Siraj, you can't move. And, you know, why do we have to put this goal off for, like, 15 years? Why don't we try to, like, do something now? So after a lot of iteration ideas, we're like, sports business is something we really like, specifically finance and tech around sports. And I was in the industry I was an early stage VC in the space. Sir Roger's going to be a banker and investment banker. And we saw this big opportunity that nobody else was covering and we incepted the fourth quarter. That's kind of the, the origin story. What did I miss? Siraj?

Speaker C: No, I think you got it. Yeah, I wouldn't call it really a childhood best friend, maybe like straight from the womb, I guess, but pre room.

Speaker D: Pre room, Pre room.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's like written in the stars. Like you've spent lifetimes together. Um, with that. Were you guys always, uh, entrepreneurial? Like, were you put it on lemonade stands on the, on the street that you grew up on was this. Did you always have this sort of, uh, passion to work together?

Speaker C: Yeah, I can speak to this. So one I gotta give, um, I gotta give my flowers to Sid. Fe had a very like, entrepreneurial spirit growing up. Um, you know, reselling sneakers was very much passionate about. Whether it was some form of collectibles. Even in college, uh, working at a startup or building out ideas of his own, that was something that he was always captivated towards. Um, Sid knows this about me. I've always had an entrepreneurial nerve in my body, but the path that I took was very much more like finance, investing, um, capital allocation. That was something that was really interesting to me growing up. You know, um, that was like what the real. That's what the main path is. Typically if you go to Penn and you're studying business, pretty much all of my peers went into banking or consulting. Um, so it was a little bit different. But I do think when I was back at home, um, and Sid and I, like, I was actually just taking my like, last one and a half classes online. That was when the idea started really flowing and I knew that Sid was already building out an ed tech company and we had always been interested in sports business. And that was something where I was like, hey, like, maybe there's something cool that can be done here. I think there could be a business that we could build in this space because we both love it. And this would be my time to explore it because I have nothing else to really do. I already had my job set up. I mean, um, after I graduate college, recruiting had already been done. So it was really through like boredom, um, and having that time to really think about what I needed to do. When in college, it's pretty much go, go, go, go get that job. Make sure you have an opportunity when you graduate college. None of those pressures or external pressures existed. So it was just me And Sid just kind of ideating and we felt that media was just kind of like the. The like, easiest thing to do. It's the product that I feel like you can immediately get out there. And I feel like that was something that was. Has really helped channel my entrepreneurial spirit that I feel like has been sort of suppressed when you go through a route of like, trying to go into corporate or go into finance or investing.

Speaker B: Basically. Tldr he just needed someone special and I guess important in his life to, like, make sure he didn't have the rest of his life as a boring path. So, yeah, I'd like to. To m. I'd, uh, like to put my hand up that one.

Speaker C: I do. I do think it was me who is. Who told Sid, yo, what think about this. Um, and then once we got both got on board, it was like, okay, let's go. Like, I feel like we have the two perfect minds to get this done. Um, and then that's how it happened.

Speaker D: So for those that don't know what is it?

Speaker A: Okay, that's helpful to provide some color to what you ended up doing. Yeah, sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, Jake, we credit I do have to give to the name is Siraj. He incepted the fourth quarter name, which I think is actually pretty. I've been. I've fallen in love with it. But, um, essentially it started off as a newsletter focused on early stage tech and venture in the sports and entertainment space. Over time, we were just consistent. It was a weekly newsletter, got all of the early stage investors and VCs reading it, invested in the sports and entertainment space over time, started covering bigger deals like the growth equity deals, the M and A deals that were happening in the space. Got the growth equity folks and the private equity investors investing in it all tuning in. And then Siraj and I were like, okay, we're not writers or journalists, we're analysts. Let's just start breaking down concepts and stuff. So things from, you know, ticketing tech to various fan engagement stuff to NFL teams now launching content studios and making movies. Like, all types of stuff that you wouldn't traditionally see on like a, you know, a news site, I guess. Um, we. When we started doing that, it took a life of its own. We started getting, you know, the team owners, um, the league, you know, execs, a handful of commissioners. And yeah, we were doing that nights and weekends up until seven months ago. And, uh, we got backing from Courtside Ventures, kind of the Early Stage fund in sports entertainment. And it's been great. Now, uh, we've been doing that full time, so it's definitely more exciting than my traditional. I was at fanatics before. I loved fanatics. Um, I'm actually in their office right now as we speak, um, for a meeting unrelated to this. But, um, yeah, no, it's, uh, it was awesome. Like, I didn't think it could get any better. And now I'm, like, walking around New York and, you know, I get to like, reflect and like, dang, it's actually really cool. I get to build with my best friend and build in the sports business media space. It's still so nascent and honestly, uh, people like yourselves is like, who we consider peers of, like, we need to. That's like the standard of content that we need to start building. So, um, long story short for, like,

Speaker D: figuring it out, it sounds, yeah, as is everybody else. The thing that I think is interesting that most content creators, um, don't do is you guys went and got some funding, uh, which is really interesting. So the normal content creators that we talk to on an ongoing basis, they're. They make social content and they're making it by themselves. Or they have maybe a video editor that's helping them or a script writer, somebody that's helping them with very small things. So all they really needed was an iPhone or a camera to get started and nothing else. And you guys, um, for all intents and purposes, you're making content too. It's just in a different way, um, different medium. And you felt a need to go and raise capital. So what was the thought process there and what are you trying to utilize that for?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question, Jake. Um, so a few, A few points of context, actually. Um, going into it. Sid and I were working on this nights and weekends, and we built an attention, um, or built the distribution to some of the major decision makers in sports. And, um, a group that was longtime readers was Courtside Ventures. Um, it was actually during the time when a lot of things were changing in the business media landscape, particularly in venture capital. We saw that a 16Z acquired turpentine, which was a podcast network that Eric Thornberg was running that was, I would say, like a pretty niche audience, but very impactful audience. Eric was, um, you know, a prolific angel investor through his experience at turpentine, and a 16Z ended up actually acquiring them. At the exact same time we saw that business networks or that business podcasts, business media, uh, overall was starting to become a lot bigger. Uh, the rise of TVPN, which recently got acquired by OpenAI, was a big thing. And I, um, was tuning into them since uh, I think about what, February 2025. So like very, very early on. And we just noticed that like this was a clear medium and a path that was actually getting a strong audience in a niche category. And even if they didn't have broad distribution, this is something that you can have a very highly monetizable product. And when Sid and I saw that, we were actually in talks with Courtside and it was like, hey, like maybe there's something that we can build similar to this and what's going on with what a 16Z is doing with turpentine. And now like Mark Andreessen comes out and says like, hey, Asics and Z is not an investing platform. It's really a media company where we monetize through investing. TVPN is obviously monetizing through like sponsorships, but at the same time they built a massive business doing it and were able to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, etc. It's like, okay, there's a clear business product that you can scale very quickly. And that's kind of what our, you know, thought process was when it comes to taking in funding. It's like, okay, we want to make sure that we can institutionalize the fourth quarter, build out a scalable product that really, um, controls the cultural zeitgeist of the business discourse that happens around sports and entertainment. Um, and so that's kind of why we decided to partner up with, with Courtside. And we have done the like typical like pick up the phone and like, you know, make video content. And that's something that Sid and I like continually want to do. We want to have a found led, uh, product, um, and outside the newsletter. I feel like what's really important is building like a very, very high grade professional, like almost broadcast like newscast, similar to what TVPN does, similar to what CNBC does, be able to do that. And I think that's going to require some like, resources, um, up front. And that's kind of our goal right now is building that out. Um, Sid, let me know if I missed anything, but that's kind of like, I feel like the strategic direction around our partnership and you know, the backing that we got from Courtside and the

Speaker B: other thing, Tyler, we caught up about this when we, you know, met but um, I think most people in sports business have gotten it wrong, um, on the media side. So they build a media following and then they go towards some paid private community model. And the fact that nobody has taken kind of this mass market, you know, who's going to build. You know, ESPN covers what's happening on the field and on the court. But there hasn't been a successful product at scale that has captured kind of everything off the court and off the field. So I think with the rise of the macro tailwinds happening in, like, media outside of sports business, I thought there probably was a product that can be built, um, in that space. So, um, yeah, that's, that's kind of just to echo what Siraj says. And ah, Tyler, Jake, man. Um, we were walking to the office today and somebody was crossing the street and somebody said, loved, love the videos, guys. Keep up. Uh, I love the show. Keep it up or something like that. Sriraj has been approached before. That was my first time I've ever been approached. Tyler, I'm sure you have. It felt. I was like, whoa. The fact that other people are actually tuning into something that was in my head once, um, is like cr. It's. I can't even, like, I'm still like, thinking about it. I was like, was that even real?

Speaker A: Like, yeah, that's nice feeling. I have like a million questions after you just walked us through that. The, the one, the one that keeps rattling around the back of my head are all these creators that I talk to on a daily basis who like, never in a million years, I promise you, have thought about getting funding to back their content creation. And I'm sure they're listening to this and they're thinking, like, what do these guys think they know about coming in here and doing sports, sports content. And they just have like. I'm sure the skeptic is asking, like, who did they know, you know, who's. Whose dad did they know to give them funding? And what is the ROI on something like this? And so I am genuinely curious, like, when you, when you pitch yourselves as, as guys who hadn't been doing it for a long time, you probably didn't quite have like, the scale of audience that other people that might be listening yet you're able to secure some sort of deal. I'm, I'm one, curious what that deal looks like. And two, like, what. What's the ROI for somebody betting on you guys right now?

Speaker B: Yeah, I wish we had some insider connections or stuff that would have made,

Speaker C: uh, that would have made this so much easier, uh, a lot less stressful

Speaker B: for us, um, at certain points. But yeah, I think the one thing is, uh, timing, like Siraj said. So, like, there was a macro thing that was happening in like, the Intersection of finance and sports, where Siraj and I, when we started, there was a news piece we read that was like, the NFL was exploring 3% private equity stakes in teams. I was like, okay, holy shit, if this actually happens, this is going to create a floodgate of private capital. It's going to end up coming in. And we were exactly right. Um, there was so much private capital that's come in new funds. I think there's 15 straight weeks of new sports and entertainment funds that have been announced consecutively. Um, that's another story for a separate time of my thoughts on will all those be winners or not? Because I don't think they will be. Um, but the content itself, it was super niche and it wasn't saturated, really. So I guess we got lucky timing wise of people being interested in the space. And second is most people don't go straight to writing. Like, I think they. They think content creation is like, picking up a phone and, like, making videos. And, you know, I think we fell into that a little bit. Siraj can testify to this. I am like, uh, I'm, like, getting used to having my face on camera. I don't have a personal Instagram. I'm not like, uh, you know, I'm building. We're building the business as we're, like, putting our face in front of it. And most creators are not like that, I feel like. And obviously there's exceptions. Tyler, of course. Um, but I think we looked at this of, like, there's a, you know, a media company that can be built here, and then we just happen to, like, okay, the business needs, uh, you know, creators now, I guess, or faces to it. And we didn't have all the money in the world to, like, go hire the Tylers of the world to go do this, right? So we were like, okay, let's just try to force ourselves into being this. Um, and I think we have a lot to learn and a lot of stuff to watch your film on, Tyler, to get better at. But, uh, yeah, that's kind of why I think that, um, timing, I think. And then also we started super niche. Um, and we saw, like, a market gap, right? Like, all of the news breaking sites in sports business were breaking the news, but nothing was going deeper. And as money was coming into the space, we were like, there is gonna. There's gonna be a demand for something that breaks down deals, analyzes stuff, why things make sense, why things don't make sense. And I think just the natural progression of that written analysis is now, like a visual component as Well, I don't know if that answered your question at

Speaker A: all, but I think, yeah, I think it answered half. It uh, the other half is like, uh, and explain as much as you're able to, like what does the deal look like when a creator gets VC backing or VC support or when you partner with a group like Courtside? Like what does, what uh, are the nuts and bolts of that deal actually look like? Do they put you on salary? Are they giving you some sort of Runway to make it work? Are there metrics you have to hit? It's just, it is relatively new to the space, I'm sure.

Speaker D: Yeah, we're juxtaposing it with um, you

Speaker A: know, like I make TikTok. TikTok pays me money for views.

Speaker D: That's right. That's right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So wait, I can, I can uh, jump into this and this is actually a really interesting macro trend that I'm seeing. It's, it's a little bit different from the deal that we have with Courtside. They're backing us. It's almost like an incubation in a sense. They understand that the sports business ecosystem needs something like what we are building out. Because if you, if you look at sports as a whole, it is an, it's becoming an institutional asset class. But the actual analyst grade coverage and analysis that's going on from a business perspective is that nearly as close with anything from enterprise software or AI or oil and gas, et cetera. Uh, we're building out a media company but I think that there's a lot of different things in the horizon. Sid and I like, we love to dream big, but we're not going to get ahead of ourselves here right now just because we're only like, we're still less than a year in media, um, is obviously the main focus. But I think that once you build that distribution attention, there's a lot of things that you can build on top of that. And having a partner backing you um, definitely can help us reach those distances. What's interesting though Tyler, is that one thing, one fun that we covered, we uh, have a segment or show called New Fund Alert, um, and the most recent one that we covered, or I think either this, this past week or the week before, uh, CAA and TPG are actually launching a $250 million, um, it's called Compound Creator Holdings Fund and they're investing directly into creators. And funny enough, I actually do think that overall we're going to see more funding to creators because they're by far the most under capitalized Businesses that exist in entertainment, yet they're by far the most strategic and at the same time extremely lean. And the best example to give this, while it's not really in the sports base and not really in me and Sid's domain in a sense is look at all of the recent box office hits with back uh, Room and Obsession. They were created by people who are creating content on YouTube and they were able to run extremely lean. And at the same time there's now a pipeline where they're making the biggest blockbuster movies. And the reason for it is because these YouTube creators, they can do everything right. At the time for Hollywood it was like you need someone who knows screenplay, you need someone knows who can direct, who can act, who can do cinematography. All these creators had to learn how to do all of that themselves, right? And I feel like that's where there's this investment like thesis there for you know, VCs or just like even private equity firms to come in the space. Another thing also is that attention has become the most important thing. And especially in the business side, if you have a really good business person who's leading the content creation front, you can build products on top of that. Like Mr. Beast has taken a lot of venture capital, a lot of institutional investment too into Beast industries. Like for example Social capital which Shamat's investment fund has um, been part of their raise as well. So you're gonna see more of that actually um, pop up. Another one is a 16Z, just backed MTS Modern the situation, just a 6, 7 hour live stream where it's literally like them just covering tech news. So I do think long term if there's like a fundamental scalable media product or products that you can build around it, similar to what you know, Jake Paul and Logan Paul have done with their media brands along with ah, Nelk and Full Send, you'll see more I think institutional capital actually capitalizing creators, um, and Tyler if you do go and raise, you know it's, there's capital, the capital be there to, to provide to you.

Speaker A: I don't even, I don't even know what I do with the money. Like I, I feel like I'm, I'm great right now. Like I, I think the part that I genuinely get worried about is that the further away I get from the thing that I like to do and that I'm good at the worst, the thing I am good at, uh, gets and then the less opportunities I have in the future, like that's just my biggest fear is that I get by the shiny things, and I get pulled away from what got me here.

Speaker B: Tyler. So to. To. On that point in particular, like, I actually don't think Siraj and I are like, typical creators. Right? Like, there are. I mean, what Siraj said with caa, there's a company company called Vure where you. It's like creators in particular get their, like, uh, get capital up front for future earnings. Um, and there's like, special financing that's coming up around creators. I don't think we're creators. I think this is like a media business and this is a media company that received funding. That's exactly. And we're, you know, quartz odds incubating us right now. So, like, to be clear, I don't think we're traditional content creators with, like,

Speaker D: keep blind to yourself because you are.

Speaker A: Dave's getting snappy.

Speaker D: I'm just, I'm just like, you sometimes just gotta call space big guys. Like, you just can't. Don't, uh, don't undersell yourself. You have to be. I'm sorry, That's a good point.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: You have to be in order for what you're doing to work well. Like, don't be shy with that. Like, don't, don't say that you're. You're not a creator. And, um, I think the term for is imposter syndrome, where, like, you don't feel like you're good enough to be this thing. You are like, just like, fully commit to it. You guys know what you're doing. Don't, don't shy away from it a hundred percent.

Speaker B: I think there's some other creative stuff that I'd like to do in this space that I haven't done yet. So, like, you're right. Maybe once I go and like, actually put those out in the world, then I'll be like, okay, I'm a real.

Speaker D: Yeah. And the term creator, it's all relative, right? You're making something. You, you guys are building this business. Like, that is. You are, you're, you're physically creating that. And you are a, uh, creator in the content sense because of all the things that you make in the content world.

Speaker C: Like, you are creating and, and to a point, for that, I think it's like, I mean, look at like, what's happening in can right now. Like, it's the creators that are kind of just like dominating all the conversations, right? And like, all of them have their own business. Like, uh, uh, in reality, I feel like creators is now it's creators equals founders. Founders equals creators, right? It's like now if you're a founder, like a lot of the, you know, companies that are being run right now, even, like, look at the biggest ones, right? Like, it's the founders that are putting themselves out there and are consistently either going on podcast show, creating their own content of themselves, and for creators, it's building businesses. Right? So I feel like it's. It's kind of all merging in a sense, and like we're like, all part of it.

Speaker B: Uh, did you see Jesser, um, launch a. Or announced that he's launching like a CPG brand? So, like, there's stuff that's coming out where like these like, huge, like, mega, like creators, influencers are like, have you have realized they've like built this distribution pipeline that like, they can layer businesses on top of. So, Tyler, I'm curious, like, both you guys, honestly, have you guys thought about, like.

Speaker D: I've got opinions on that.

Speaker B: Okay. All right, well, I'm curious if you guys see it for yourself of like, now future businesses of things and use the distribution you've built to, like, you know, sell it, I guess.

Speaker A: Yeah, I kind of.

Speaker D: I'll go first, Jake.

Speaker A: I mean, we did in reverse. So, um, when I graduated from the University of Minnesota, uh, I was doing freelance social media management, um, and like developing organic social media creative, which for all intents and purposes of what I do now for myself, uh, is what I was doing for clients. And I just stumbled into the content thing for myself. And now I've been able to. Specifically, uh, in the sports space, the clients that our agency deals with are. They're all sports related, tangentially at least. And, um, there's a lot of times where somebody comes to me as a creator and they want to work with Tyler Webb, the creator. And it might not work out the best because my price is too high or what they're looking for is much more comprehensive than what an individual can offer. And it's a very easy sell back into the agency, uh, for a much more comprehensive social strategy, um, you know, creative distribution, uh, plan. And so the asset that I see myself as selling is like, really good organic content. And whether they want to work with me directly to do that or they want to work with the agency to do that, I think that the capabilities are the same. The same m. The same way. I guess Mr. Beast seems sees a synergy with, uh, chocolate bars in his audience, you know, So I see it a little bit, Jake, with the, uh, with the agency and what I do.

Speaker D: Yeah, there definitely is overlap. There I think that for the longest time, creators had no way of monetizing outside of, like, placed advertisements in their content. Um, really the only place you could do it was YouTube long form, which was very difficult to do and a tough task for somebody to start in. And I think, like, content has just become much easier to create. Um, it's also become a lot more competitive. But at the same time, both of those things happen. Happening. There's been so much money injected into the content creator ecosystem, um, both by the platforms and by brands that now, more, More than any other time in history, it is easier to make content and make money from that content online. Um, and, and so for forever, I've. People will start a company. This I just get. I'm just. I'm gonna air frustration for you guys. Please don't do this. Um, I've seen so many people. They'll start a company and then, like, everyone around them will get super excited and then they'll, like, make T shirts and they'll sell T shirts with their company's brand on it. And, um, I'm like, are you a T shirt company? And they're like, no. Like, we do. We're trying to do this thing for these people. I'm like, why are you wasting time selling T shirts to your friends that are gonna spend $20 on t? You can make $10. If you want to be a T shirt company, go do that. If you want to do the thing that you're trying to do, don't waste your time thinking about selling T shirts and doing all this ancillary stuff that actually doesn't do anything for you. It feels like motion because you're getting a little bit of money from your friends and family that are buying this stuff from you. Nobody actually wants to buy your brand's T shirt or hat or whatever it is that you're selling. And I think, um, the same thing can apply in the creator space too. The main thing as a creator is how can you, um, this is a capitalistic version of me that's talking how can you maximize the amount of money that you can make from the content that you have that's in front of you, right? And so I think the purest play of that is through, um, platform payments and partnered, um, content with different brands that you're working with. And as you get further and further away from that, I think you start to lose the forest for the trees a little bit. Right? You start to think that you're more than, um, a content creator, which is okay. And you can be more than that. I'm giving the exact opposite advice that I just gave you guys about you are a content creator. You can become more than that. But just be very careful. You can have anything you want. You can't have everything that you want all at the same time. You got to play it cool and it's okay to just be a content creator too. And you don't have to do all these, like 100 different things that you see the biggest content creators in the world doing because they have these huge teams behind them and a ton of venture money.

Speaker B: We gotta cross off merch as a potential feature. We were like, we were thinking, we're like, I feel like we could make pretty good.

Speaker D: I'm sure you've, uh, probably had the thought. I had the thought at one point, but you could like, print merch for print merch. Give it to your friends and family. They'll love it and they'll wear it and it serves the same purpose and you're going to lose a little bit of money on it. That's okay. But you're not T shirt company. Like, just be. Be the company you are.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's. I mean, so it's so hard not to get distracted. I think that's the thing. The thing that's most difficult for me is every day I wake up and I have, like Jake says, infinite opportunities that have been afforded to me by doing this thing really well. But the only way that those opportunities persist is by continuing to do that thing really well, which can feel boring and mundane. I like, I, uh, my. We're just airing frustrations now. My biggest frustration when people ask me,

Speaker D: like, this will help them. Hold on.

Speaker C: This.

Speaker D: This will help. Like this. This is gonna be helpful for you guys? I think maybe not.

Speaker A: Okay, you didn't know.

Speaker B: Raise your hand.

Speaker D: Raise your hand if this sucks.

Speaker A: I think a lot of people perceive this career as a content creator as being like a fun extension of a hobby. Like, you wake up and you kind of feel, uh, creative and inspired and then you make something that people watch and then. And you get this dopamine hit of people watching it and that goes on and on and on. I think the people that do it really well and the people that I really admire in the space treat it like a job and they clock in at 9am and they work for eight plus hours a day on doing the thing really well in a really focused and sometimes boring way. Like, the question I hate getting is like, oh, what are you doing today? Like, people wishcast on me. Like, I have some, like, really interesting day every. You know, some days are interesting. We mentioned before, I wish people could

Speaker D: see how much you write. I wish people could see how much you write, Tyler. Cause, like, they only see the videos, but 90% of your time is just researching and writing, right?

Speaker A: And that's most of my day. And that's really. And that's really boring. And it's, uh, it's not sexy, and it's probably not what people picture when they think about being a content creator. But, like, that's the job, and that's it. And I have to do that, and I have to convince myself that that's worthwhile to do five days a week for eight hours, you know, like, however long it takes me. And I think that's, uh, the hardest thing you can do is to do that over. And I've been doing this now for, like, four years, every day, just that. And it's. It's not sexy, but, like, that's what. That's what gets you here. So I. I don't even think we're giving you advice that you asked for at this point, but it's like the, uh, the discipline to stay focused is hard. And Siraj just hopped off. He said, I didn't even want that advice. M. He's like, you know what? This sounds too difficult. This sounds too difficult. I don't know. I don't know how. I don't know what question that answered or if we pose went to you, but thought no.

Speaker D: And all that to say, don't, uh, sell T shirts, please.

Speaker A: Don't sell T shirts, please.

Speaker D: And may maybe at some point, but not right now.

Speaker B: Uh, you guys won instead. And then not.

Speaker D: There you go, there you go.

Speaker A: I'll wear it proudly.

Speaker B: On that last note, or one of the things that you mentioned, I was. I'm curious, who are people that you look up to in this space?

Speaker A: Well, I. I always shout out Frank Michael Smith. He's like the og, um, the one who. The white guy. The white guy who talked about sports with a M in front of a microphone before any of the other white guys got into the game. Um, because we. We are a real breed online. Um, and we all. We all stem in some way from him, uh, his. His attention to detail. I. I remember he spoke at a TikTok event last year. And I like, Frank and I talk on a regular basis. So I was kind of joking with him. I'm like, I've kind of heard this all before. Like, you're gonna. It's gonna Take a lot to surprise me. And he did surprise me at that moment in that speech because he talked about how if you've ever watched one of Frank Michael Smith's videos, go watch it. You can't unsee it. His captions flip. They're like a rectangle, a white rectangle with black text. And instead of like individual words popping up on screen, it's like a rectangle with the words. And every time he transitions to the next sentence, the captions flip. And it's like this flipping animation. And it looks cool. You know, it's kind of his style. And you watch it and you're like, you don't note it when you're watching it. It's just kind of cool. And it's probably like a retention thing he's done forever. And he mentioned how those are individual PNGs that his team has to go in, make the PNG and you know, there's probably 78 of them over the course of a 90 second video. And then they have to manually animate them to flip every time. So they're manually an. It's not like, you know, if you go into Premiere Pro, you can auto caption anything now you can auto caption something in TikTok, but they're manually creating PNGs that manually animate to flip. And he says it takes, you know, call it 30 extra minutes per video. And I asked him, I'm like, what? Like there has to be a line where it is too much time and not enough benefit. And he said, I don't think so. I think the extra time it takes to make those captions flip is unique enough to me that I'm gonna keep doing it no matter how long it takes. And I just thought that was so interesting because it's like, it's something that you don't notice. But he has such a clear creative vision for what he wants his stuff to look like and be. And that obviously permeates throughout the rest of his content. Like the way that he does animations and represents, uh, data visually I think is really impressive. And so he's always my. I call him the Godfather of sports content because I think what he does is so impressive. And then I think on the complete opposite end, in a much more analog, uh, space, Riley, uh, Martin Sportsball has just absolutely exploded onto the scene. And if you ever get a chance to talk to him, you'll think like, he is almost antithetical to what you think a creator is like. He's very soft spoken. Uh, he's not Very like, he doesn't like hyperbole.

Speaker D: He's very like talk about data visualizations.

Speaker A: He's very subdued. And the stuff he talks about is not sexy. Like if I were to give you the headline version of like all of his videos, you'd be like, there's no way that is going to reach 10 people. Like, there's no right. But the way he talks about it and like is clearly so passionate about it is uh, is frankly really inspiring to me because I do think to do this job well, you have to truly be a nerd about the stuff you're talking about. And he clearly is. So those are two that stick out to me for opposite reasons.

Speaker D: So you guys have, you guys have a pretty interesting media company that you're setting up. How are you thinking about growth right now for the like? I guess we'll talk about it in terms of viewership or impressions?

Speaker B: Yeah, um, I think it's not novel but it's what's happening right now. It's the long form feeds us a bank or an ocean of content that we can pull from and then just short form like flood um, various streams. Um, we're a little bit more curated than I think just flooding. I think we could like farm a lot of clips and like half of them or more than half of them don't do well. But we take a, you know, a decent amount of short form clips from our long form and are able to um. 1. At first it was kind of just like casting a wide net and we're posting this, everything, the same stuff across TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever. Realized very quickly that certain platforms, which, this seems very obvious to creators that like certain platforms prioritize and like other types of videos more than others. So like something that does really well on TikTok or something that does, you know, all right on TikTok might not do well on, you know, on Instagram and then vice versa and like, um, so figuring out kind of like the high level strategies like long form funnels to short form and short form reaches a much wider base than our long form actually gets. Um, what we're thinking in terms of content is like kind of next, the next push for us is live stream. Um, you know, newscasts are live streams. Kind of like our current problem I guess is or bottleneck is that like we have a day turnaround from when we film to when it's live or when it's posted on platforms and it's kind of stuff is kind of outdated. Maybe a clip is on Our content roadmap comes out. You know, we post, we film on a Thursday post the long Friday and one of the clips still from our Thursday recording comes out the following Wednesday. Right. And it's like at that point are we news, are we still breaking down stuff like it's relevant? Um, so yeah, way we're thinking about it, long form and short form and then live stream is kind of the next big lever, uh, for growth and then like volume. Um, so just more of that. Um, yeah, if we're not, if we're thinking about it wrong, we'd love to get any, you know, any feedback.

Speaker A: Well, I wonder if you like your, your, your relative metrics have to be, your relative success metrics have to be a little different because you're, you're talking about a very specific group. I mean when you talk about investors, owners, executives, people that work in the space, I mean relatively speaking you're probably not talking about more than a couple hundred to a couple thousand people. Right? So I, I wonder how you measure success when the big numbers don't show up.

Speaker D: I think the more interesting question for you guys just because you're in such like a, ah, you're in a niche space with theoretically a bunch of buying power. This is probably pretty difficult to calculate right now, but it'll become more easy to calculate over time is like what is the average value of an ad unit for you guys in whatever placements that you have? And it's probably, as I said, it's not easy to put your thumb on it right now. But I think that that might be the more interesting thing to ultimately track for your guys's business and not like all the impression stuff like that's helpful. But the main, it seems like the actual engine uh, for your business is how much can you charge for all the different placements that you guys have in front of you?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's actually something that Sid and I think about all the time. And like if you're in a niche like industry or like a niche topic, especially on the business side, like you're not going to get as much like far reaching impressions as like someone who's just like making it for the grand scheme of people. But then also the brands that work with you are more consumer oriented. Right. Because you have greater reach. What we are thinking, the way that we want to do this is we want our partners and while there will be some that are consumer that I think makes complete sense to work with us. We do have this like B2B focus. Right. Where it's like if you want to sell to like sports business executives, operators, what teams actually use in their software stack or what investors use, um, for all their financial management or AI finance tools, etc. Like you should be advertising or sponsoring or partnering with the fourth quarter. Um, and I think they're there. The ad value is a lot higher just because the contract values of some of these deals are massive. Right. Like if you can get in front of the right owner or the right team executive who may have never heard about your B2B SaaS solution that's meant for sports teams or you know, some AI product that's going to be able to apply to the sports space overall, like that's something that's extremely valuable because that deal might be worth hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Right. And typically the way that that is really infiltrated, it's not through like digital media. Like a lot of it is like, hey, if we want to sell into sports, we'll do like this one, um, we'll do an advertisement on Sports Business Journal.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker C: But that's like one article and that's it, right? For us. We feel like the video product that we have, the short form engine, the short form engine that we're building, um, you'll have immediate brand presence with our audience 24 7.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: That's something that you can't get anywhere else. And that means that like the partners that we are working with, they're targeting our group specifically. Um, and so I think that's where you can get real value from. Um, the ad dollars.

Speaker A: You mentioned a couple times, guys, how you look at the landscape of sports business media and you weren't pleased with what you saw. I'm curious specifically what you thought was missing.

Speaker C: Yeah, I can, I can jump in and, and talk about this.

Speaker D: I think videos, Ty, they saw your videos and said it's not enough scratching for me. Something, something more to be desired.

Speaker A: No.

Speaker C: So I don't think it's a problem with anything that was going on. I actually think that sports media specifically, like if you're covering like actual sports or even off the field, when it comes to culture, etc. Sports is ahead, like very much ahead. Right. Actually like business media takes from sports. But what's thing what I think about like traditional sports business media, um, it's still just very much like journalistic news driven. It's like can we break as much news as possible? Like there is some video content that's like um, very informative of what's going on in sports business. But I don't think. I think the depth of the content is something that like we thought was truly missing. Right. Like I, I was an investment banker for a year. A lot of the stuff that I was consuming was like industry reports or like equity research reports on public companies or just industries overall. Like you would never be able to find any of that in sports entertainment. Second is if I were to tune into cnbc, what on earth are they talking about? Sports business. They're not really.

Speaker D: And they're not really talking about anything on that, by the way.

Speaker B: Just for the record, nothing. Nothing relevant.

Speaker C: And so it's like, for us it's like, wait, but this just. There's just so much money going into this. This is clearly a massive business as well. It's always honestly been, um, and now that they're actually letting like capital allocators come in and they realize that this is a profitable business, not only is it extremely, extremely profitable, um, I think live experiences is here to stay. Right. Um, there's a really good interview with Gary Vee where he's talking about the barbell where it's like as everything becomes more hypersocial and AI more in person, live entertainment and experiences are going to be just as much valuable. And so if that's the case, if you want to hedge against AI or at least diversify, um, because if you own The S&P 500, most of it is AI anyways. A lot of those investors are going and also investing in experiences in live entertainment and sports as well. So if that's the case, there needs to be even more in depth coverage because where are they to get their information from? They really don't.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: It's like there's no real platform that's going in depth insights. And so that's the origin story of the newsletter. And then it's like, okay, the show is like always on. Can we continually produce content where you're covering all these different topics? And then me and Sid, who. I mean this is imposter syndrome. But like I generally believe like we are like one of one experts in this space. Like we've just been reading and consuming all this content. We're about to hit a hundred articles that we've written and like we've done like we poured our heart and soul into research for two straight years talking to all the biggest insiders in the sports business space, taking from all different perspectives, our backgrounds also is like we like to take from other things as well. We're keeping in touch with what's going on in AI and what's going on in health care, what's going on in ed tech, like all these different industries we're pulling from. And we think we just have that unique insight that puts us in a good position to go be analysts and put ourselves on screen and like talk about stuff, right? And so I think that's kind of where we think there's white space. I don't think it's more like what people are doing wrong. I just don't think people were doing it at all. Um, and so Sid and I were like, you know what, let's just do it. Because like, we think that we can, we can do this, right? And I think now that we've been like so consumed in this knowledge and understand, um, feels like it's getting easier and easier every week.

Speaker B: Tyler, Jake, I guess a question for you guys. Like, what do you think is, has been missing? What do you think this industry needs? Slash, Uh, I guess a follow up to that is like our thesis, Raj and I's thesis is like there should be a newscast for this industry. Like, do you think there's like, validity to that? Like, do you agree? Do you not agree? I'm curious to hear your guys's takes, Jake.

Speaker D: Well, we can't, we can't write your business plan for you, but I'll give you an opinion. No, I, Well, I think one argument is if it needed to exist, it would exist already. Like there's a ton of media that um, is out there. I don't really buy into that argument because you can just go further and further down that rabbit hole and um, you can make that argument for anything. It's circular. Um, I think based off of what you guys are doing specifically, it kind of exists in parts and pieces in different areas of the digital, uh, media ecosystem. Now I think Tyler's a part of that ecosystem. Um, CNBC is a part of that ecosystem. I know they don't talk about sports often, but, uh, they talk about sports sometimes. Uh, there's a ton of different podcasts and other media, uh, like that, that they don't do exactly what you guys are trying to do or wanting to do, but they um, are kind of in there a little bit. And there are certainly a lot of, um, we'll call it finance based or um, technology based or early VC based organizations that are doing something similar and they'll talk about sports a little bit. And whereas what you guys are trying to do is you're trying to talk about sports and then bring all those other little components into it as well. So in terms of what is missing, I think what you guys have outlined is probably the thing that that is missing. Something that is truly dedicated to just that. And you can then become a part of that overall ecosystem and serve into all those other things that are just taking little pieces off of uh, the sports business industry. So that'd be my take. Ty, I don't know, you're probably a bit closer into it on the media side of things.

Speaker A: I like the thesis. I think the equivalent would be like, when we think about how we consume like sports media, just talking about the play on the field. It would be like the way the sports media and entertainment industry stands now. It would be like if we could only read about the reactions of commentators in the newspaper and online. Like there would be no TV shows, there would be no social clips. We could only read about it. And that's I think largely how sports business media, sports entertainment media exists right now. Where there is, there is no analysis, there's certainly no like analysis you can watch or listen to. That I think is super popular. Um, Jake, I agree roughly with what you're saying. Whereas like if it did, if it was viable, it would exist already. Um, we talked about it. Sit in Siraj. Like there are obviously the front office sports of the world making runs at doing something similar. Um, which brings me to the thought of what are your circles in your Venn diagram of people you're trying to reach and how big can those be before they get too far away from the core? It's something I've, I've transparently gone through where it's like when I, it actually just happened.

Speaker C: It's a great question.

Speaker A: I was at the World cup where and uh, some, somebody recognized me to Sid, great feeling. And um, the people that were sitting next to me and my wife were like, is he famous or something? And my wife was like yeah, he makes, you know, content on social media. And they're like what does he do? And she goes, he does like sports fun facts. And I was like. I was like why did you say that? I'm like just say, like just say I do sports business. And she's like but you don'. Really do sports business. And I was like okay, I don't.

Speaker C: You're right.

Speaker A: I don't do like just sports business. And it's probably, sports business is probably far too narrow, uh, for the stuff that I do day to day and certainly like the stuff that reaches the most amount of people, um, is probably not neatly categorized in sports business. But for me, the exercise of expanding the circles of people, I'm okay reaching while getting further and further away from what in my head. I picture like the ideal person that's watching my videos. It's a push and pull, to be honest with you. Like, there'll be times where a video will sort of like break containment, I like to call it. Where, uh, it reaches like so many people that I almost think like, was that video too unrelated to the core group of people that I'm trying to reach? Where, like, it, it lost its effect? Like, obviously it's cool that a lot of people saw, but like, it lost its effect. Like I'd. I'd way rather have a video, I think, these days. And I go back and forth on this, but where I'm like super nerdy and passionate about the subject matter. And I know it's probably a little too narrow of a focus and it gets 100,000 views as opposed to a video that gets like 4 million views. But it's like, you know, it was kind of a bland, more consumeristic version of sports and business. So that's uh, an exercise I go through. I'm curious where you guys have landed on where your circles are and how far away from the core you're comfortable getting.

Speaker B: That's such an introspective question. I love this. I don't know, I mean, a lot of this. I should probably sit down and think this through. Yeah, we had one recently though, right, right. Where we're like. We made a video about m. The World Surf League. And uh, you know them. There was announcements of someone trying, you know, them going up for sale and people trying to audit. And Siraj and I are from Georgia, landlocked. We're not surfers. Um, and we captioned or kind of like had titled the video, like, um, the short form video. Uh, can the World Surf League become a Billion dollar Opportunity? Or something like that. Right? Something along those lines. It went viral to our standards, so it's probably not to Tyler standards. It got like close to 200,000 views for us. That's it. That broke containment. And, uh, we started getting like. It went viral. We were starting to realize because we were getting people mad in the comments who were surfers and they were like, look at these, like, uh, you know, these kooks or whatever, like, who never, um, you know, surfed or clearly. It's like, do these guys even surf? Like, these guys are talking rubbish. It's like World Source League is trash and like all these different things. I'm just like, like some comments were so like out of left field or like, did you even like, watch the video? Like, we're even taking a stance. We're like saying, yeah, probably the, the average sports fan, like, or not even average sports fan, like, the average niche sports fan is probably like who we're not trying to reach for sure. Um, probably threading the line of like that outer rim of who we're trying to reach is like sports fan or a, ah, professional who's like, interested in the space that probably doesn't work in it. Um, and they would watch a minute, minute 30 through is probably like who we'd want to maximally like get to.

Speaker A: I also, I also think, by the way, like, it doesn't. This might null and void everything I just said, it doesn't matter. And you can't decide who sees your stuff anyway. Jake and I always complain about this with our clients where they're like, can we get um, some people here to see this? We're like, I mean, you want to put like paid spend behind it, we can guarantee it. But once you put it out, uh, into the world, you can't control who sees it. You can reactively get signals and then alter your strategy going forward, but you can't control who sees it. And I also think, like, this is the Oreo strategy where they release a crazy flavor that I'm sure nobody actually buys, but it gets you thinking like, oh, I might want a regular Oreo. And so the, the headline Oreo draws you into the, the core product, which is just getting a regular double stuffed.

Speaker D: Or it gets you so disgusted in Oreos that you don't want to buy a regular Oreo. That's, that's the risk that you're taking there. It's like you get so far away from it.

Speaker A: I just don't think that Oreo, they keep releasing crazy flavors. So I just don't think, you know, I just, I just don't think that that happened to me. Oh, you can turn off from Oreos

Speaker D: if I see, you know.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, you have to, you have to like, do these insurgency campaigns, whether intentionally or unintentionally, into like other areas of the Internet to bring even a couple people back to your side of the Internet with you. And so I think there is value in like casting wide nets. I really think the more I think about social, it's just, it's the law of large numbers. Like, if you reach a million people and 1% of them stick around because they find your thesis on sports and entertainment Interesting. Well then it's better to reach a million people than it is to reach a thousand people because 1% of a million is just going to be a lot bigger of a number. And, and that I, at the end of it, I think that's the game we're playing.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: Makes sense. And, and the way we, the way we like make sure that we don't go too off track is like sit and I before a show. We make sure it's like, okay, like what are all the stories that we're going to cover? It's like primarily on the business side. Um, there's sometimes where we have like a cultural headline, but we like the commentary is always from business side. So we make sure that like that is inject in the social clips. And so like, even if it goes viral, we just hope it cats catch the net where it's like, oh, maybe I didn't see it from the business angle. And that's something that's super enticing for maybe that sports fan who's a consultant or a banker who's like, oh, there's a really cool industry here that maybe I'll go work into or go work at. Uh, but we also found that like the World Surf League like went viral. We had like videos like um, uh, William Blair acquiring Inner Circle Sports. Like that video like hit nearly a hundred thousand views and like it went to the Inner Circle Sports team, the leadership actually. And uh, they loved it. But it's like there's certain like videos that I do think that like naturally, um, it'll get pushed just because I think that sports business is a really cool topic. I think people, um, don't have even have a glimpse of the business side. And so we just hope that like the, the business discussions, the core business discussions that Sid and I are super nerdy about, like. And like you said, Tyler, with the topics that you choose that I think it will. I think there's actually a ton of people out there who do want to see that content.

Speaker A: I'll go back to what the advice Jake gave you earlier about not shying away from being creators. I think one of the most important parts of that identity is using it as a litmus test to remind yourself that it is okay to cover things that might fall outside of that really tight circle. Because as long as I think as long as you are passionately interested in this thing, there is nothing that is too far from the core that you, that you couldn't cover. And the reason that identity as a content creator, I think is important is because if you do, if you do this, like, media company thing, I think then you're shroud in this quiet expectation of the things you feel like you have to cover. Like, I'm sure people at. At cnbc, there's a type of story that CNBC covers. But I mean, what is the type of story that Sid and Siraj cover?

Speaker C: I don't know.

Speaker A: It's whatever they're interested in. And being closer to the content and closer to the story, I think gives you a leg up on those other media companies that you bring up in the same conversation that you're likely competing with either now or one day. Uh, I think that's the benefit creators have is just being great curators of interesting things. I think that's why it's so hard for my wife even to describe what I do, because it's just sort of a following of whatever my interests are that week, and it's hard to pin them down, but they're uniquely mine. And I think that's what makes it different from Frank. It makes it different from Riley at Sportsball. Like, we're just individual people following the things we're interested in without any, like, standard we're holding ourselves to, because we're just individual people that are multifaceted and have a lot of interests. And I think people can come to appreciate that. So I would encourage you guys to not be so strict on your litmus tests.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's a good, uh, piece of advice. It's also weird. I, like, walked in to a room where Sirj was sitting, and he was, like, playing one of our videos, and I was like, okay, he's just, like, rewatching one of our things, and there was additional commentary. And I was like, oh, God, what's this? And that World Surf League clip ended up on some, like, famous, like, surf podcast where these guys were. They only talk about culture and lifestyle. And I was like, oh, they're gonna out. No, they completely, like, they, like, flamed us and stuff. It was kind of fun.

Speaker C: Yeah, there's like, a weird thing where it's like, these, like, hardcore surfers, like, aren't into, like, the competitions. And, like, we didn't know. That's kind of like what the, uh, suits, Right?

Speaker B: So, yeah, it's exactly the league.

Speaker D: Right? Like, you kind of want to have people that are.

Speaker A: There's chasing waves, man.

Speaker C: They're just chasing waves.

Speaker B: Exactly. And vibes.

Speaker C: That was fun. It was funny. Funny story quickly about that. It's like, one. So one of my, uh, former colleagues who's an associate with me at bank of America where I used to work. He's like a big time surfer and like he was just listening to this podcast for fun and he like, heard my voice and he sent it to me and he was like, dude, no way. You made it on like the biggest like, like comedy surf podcast. And it was pretty funny. Like the way that they were like talking about it was like funny. Like at some point in time, like you're gonna put yourself out there. Like, I, uh, mean, we obviously take what we say very seriously, but we can take ourselves like way too seriously at a point where it's like, look, all, all reactions, all feedback. Like right now we're young, we're hungry, and we're, you know, a bit small. Like that's what we need, right? It's fuel to the fire. It's also creates more engagement. Um, I think long term, like things like that, like, we're very receptive towards,

Speaker D: most importantly in all of that, it tells you what, what works and what doesn't work. And this has been, this is, this has been, uh, for me, the greatest piece of advice that uh, Tyler consistently shares with me and everybody else that works for us. And it often comes up on these, these conversations here. It's like uh, social media specifically and probably all the other channels that you guys are in, you can tell very quickly if something performed well or did not perform well for you guys.

Speaker A: They're the most merocratic thing we have left in this room.

Speaker D: That's these social platforms and you guys have a little bit of um, I guess noise in your um, feedback channel because you're trying to serve a smaller audience. You don't know if the 100 viewers that saw, ah, that thing or a thousand viewers or 10,000 viewers that saw that thing are the 10,000 viewers that you want them to be. Or there's a random group of people that happen to enjoy what you're seeing. That's the struggle with it. But overall you'll be able to tell by feel and in some cases by data the things that are doing well and aren't doing well and don't try to outsmart it. Right. I think you two are very smart individuals. I think a trap you can fall into is you can think that your idea is good and it might just be terrible. And that's okay. That's just a part of the process of doing this content creator stuff. You just have to wake up and do the thing. And then eight times out of 10, at least early on it's going to suck, um, and you're going to get negative feedback and then that'll transition to eight times out of 10 is going to work well. And you'll figure that out over time.

Speaker A: I have one more question for you guys. It's on the back of what Jake is saying. I don't know if you've had the feeling yet of how, uh, nebulous success feels in this career where there's no especially Siraj. You come from a place where I'm sure success was very linearly defined in your career, at least where it's going to move up here and you move up here and you move up here and you get a pay raise. And in this career it's just the opposite. It sucks sometimes where there's no clear, uh, there's certainly no clear endpoint. I literally just bought a book assignment. The Infinite Game. I'm about halfway through. I'll let you guys know, um, how it ends up. But it's pressing on this idea that, like, there are no defined rules or defined players and there's really no end to the game. So how you play the game matters just as much as understanding the game you're in in the first place. When you look at success in whatever timeframe you want to describe it as, what does that look like for you guys?

Speaker B: I, I have an answer, but I don't know if it's like, if it's worth, you know, repeating or whatever. Um, I really do hope, like, obviously, um, if you're like a good person, like truly a good person, you just do good work and like, you know, things will follow. Like, I'm just a believer in that. But, um, when I look back on this experience, I, like, am, um, hoping. And I do believe that, um, it's just like fun memories. Like, you know, I think there's so many ways, I mean, our future's so long. We're all still like very young and like, like careers are very long time thing and they're big marathons. But like, I don't know when I'm, like when I have grandkids one day and I'm telling them, like, I got to live in New York City, built this, you know, sports media company with my like, best friend. Like, I don't know how many people can ever get to say that. And I think I know that there's metrics that we have to hit or like dollars that need to come in and there's, you know, things that have to get done to Grow. Uh, but I'm having a lot of fun, and I think as long as I keep doing that, I'm working my way towards the right path. And, like, I know it's not really quantitative, but, um, I don't know, that's. That's probably like, as the moment I stop having fun, I guess, is probably, like, where I'm like, okay, I've hit something, or we gotta retract, or maybe my. My time is. Is done. But, um. Oh, man, I. That's probably what I'd think.

Speaker A: All right, Siraj.

Speaker C: Yeah, so that's a. That's a great answer. Honestly, like, I have to echo that because, I mean, very much like, you

Speaker B: couldn't think of anything else. Like, you gotta. You gotta take the quantitative approach.

Speaker A: Hey, leave how many followers. How many followers you want back in the year.

Speaker C: So, like, I. I think. I think the impact for me, or, like, success, um, you know, being, you know, having been a banker and, like, it's very much like, yeah, you're right, it's linear. It's like, you get the promotion, you get a bonus. Right? Like, that is, like, the fundamental, like, metric of success. It's really just like the dollars that are. That are coming into your bank account. Right. And I don't think that's at all how you can look at content creation, especially at such a. Like, a young stage that we're at right now. I do think that's, you know, I'm very passionate about this industry. I think it's very nascent, and there's a lot of things that we're going to see and develop, um, in this industry overall. Whether it's, you know, new technologies that form and are being used in the sports space or, um, you know, dollars invested in actual real returns delivered to. To these major investors platforms. Um, a big measure of success for, for me is just like. Like, I want to have significant influence on that. Right? Like, there's a reason why we write and put our opinions out every single day. Um, I hope that's being used for something that's good or for something that's good for the industry overall that pushes sports, entertainment and the business side of this. What I would say, like, pretty, like, young industry, um, to its next evolution. And I hope the fourth quarter is a big part of that. And there is really no quantitative metrics. I don't think dollar signs can really attribute to that. But, you know, one thing Sid and I are, we love to, like, come up with interesting ideas and thoughts and. And we'll write it and we'll talk about in our show. And sometimes it does come true. We've like made, we have this thing where it's like we, we make predictions and then it actually does happen. And we're like, okay, that's awesome. And they're people, they're like readers or viewers that we know. It's like, oh, like they were actually a part of it. Um, that's really, really cool. And so we just hope that we can have like a positive influence on, on this, on this industry. And also like, do want to inspire people out there to come work in sports business because I think it's like one of the most fun things you can do. Um, and also being a creator in this space because you can kind of carve out your own path. So I would say those are the two probably like big success metrics that, um, I care the most about right now.

Speaker B: Tyler, Jake, what about you guys? Or is it like, is there like numbers or is it like philosophical like us?

Speaker A: It's increasingly philosophical for me anyway. I mean, we, I guess, I don't know internally at the agency, Jake, I feel like we. That's where we talk about the numbers the most. But they're super arbitrary.

Speaker D: It's so arbitrary.

Speaker A: They're just cool looking on paper.

Speaker D: And then we'll just like, okay, well, let's just do more of that, I guess. I don't, I don't know.

Speaker A: It's just, it's gotta be the next number.

Speaker D: No, but what I think about now at the agency is, um, the questions around how we're measuring success.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker D: What I think about now is more so how can I use the space that I have provided the agency itself to develop the people that we have working for us into just good people, good leaders, um, good members of society? And this just happens to be the avenue that makes sense for us right now because we have, um, a bunch of full time staff that are working for us and with us on a day to day basis. And so the thing that I think about most often now is how can I just set a good example here and make sure that these people are set up in the things that they're doing on a day to day basis, but also just in general to how can they think? Like, how can I set them up to think about things in a way that is conducive to them living a good life and helping them help other people live a good life too.

Speaker A: Helps follow that one up. I always do. My Casey Neistat. Casey Neistat described, uh, success as a YouTuber at the time as doing more of the things you like to do and fewer of the things you don't like to do. And I think it's quantifiable in the sense that I can look back last year and look at the hours of meetings I was in or the tasks that I was doing that I no longer have to do and think, like, okay, I'm not doing so much of that. And I've carved out more time to do the stuff that I like to do that I'm good at. So that's my back of the napkin way of. Way of putting it.

Speaker B: Love it. I love it.

Speaker A: Where can people. Where can people find you guys the newsletter? And you also. How often is the. Is the show and where do people watch?

Speaker B: Give us the rundown.

Speaker C: Yeah, so two things. Newsletter show, both weekly. Um, show usually comes out on Fridays. You can see it on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify. It's just. Look up the fourth quarter show and use the number, um, and you'll be able to find it. And then our website is the fourth quarter co. But it's spelled out, um, and that's

Speaker A: where we might have to. We might have to dial that in. That could be confusing.

Speaker B: Well, Tyler, we have both domains, luckily. Um, but we just wanted to. I mean, so I guess we could just, like, auto forward.

Speaker D: You should do that.

Speaker C: Yeah, we're not doing that.

Speaker A: We're not doing that.

Speaker B: Wait.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, okay.

Speaker D: You should do that, like, today.

Speaker B: Yeah. Are you guys doing that or. No?

Speaker A: Well, we don't have two names. We have one name.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's the one.

Speaker B: Downfall or negative 4Q as well, which I like. So maybe all three of them have to be, um. No, we should set that up. SirJ. Um, which is kind of been. We've been moving at, like, a billion miles per hour. It's just like. All right, 70. Done. Okay, let's move on to the next. But. Yeah, um, the fourth quarter dot or the fourth quarter HQ on Instagram and, uh, TikTok. So, um, I'm. This is the first of, I'm sure many conversations we'll have offline and online. Um, and once the show's live, we got to get you guys on and chop it up on our show.

Speaker C: Live, dude.

Speaker B: Full live.

Speaker A: We've never gone live. And I don't know. I mean, that's. That's gonna be a risk, Jake.

Speaker C: I don't know.

Speaker A: I don't know if my people know how much stuff we cut out of these episodes.

Speaker D: Not much. Not much. But Uh, I just. I just might be a little bit more risky in a live environment.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: I love it.

Speaker C: Hey, that's better. That's better for the content.

Speaker D: I'm just kidding. I'm brand. I'm very brand safe.

Speaker A: Thank you, guys. It was great.

Speaker B: Thank you guys for having us.

Speaker D: All right, Jake.

Speaker A: I sometimes feel bad when we. I feel like we bring people on and we just grill them.

Speaker D: I think it's actually super helpful.

Speaker A: I mean, I hope that. I hope they think so.

Speaker D: Yeah, I'm, um.

Speaker B: Um.

Speaker D: Yeah, I hope so, too. I hope so, too. That's all we were trying to be. Uh, we weren't ripping them apart by any means. It was just. We're just, uh. When I see somebody that needs. They're still so young and early into the content creation journey that we might be able to help them, um, skip ahead three months or six months just by telling them some pieces of information that they'll figure it out, but it's maybe better off that we just tell them right now.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think, uh, I respect how big they're shooting for. I think your point of them not shying away from the identity of a creator is also really smart because in order for them to get to that endpoint, the vessel for them to get there is going to be those two guys being talented enough creators to get people to believe in them and then hopefully believe in a larger vision. The one they were telling us about has to be.

Speaker D: Has to be. Um, we didn't really get into it as much as I wanted to, but we started to talk about your creative process a bit. And, um, they were talking about. They didn't realize how much writing it was going to be. And at first I thought they were talking that they were referring to the writing that went into the videos that they were doing. And I don't think that was the case. I think they were just talking about the writing that went into the actual, like, newsletter and articles, um, that they're releasing on their website. But I think it's fascinating how much writing time goes into your content. And I don't think that it is universal that everybody does a ton of writing time and thinking time before they go into their. Their. Their content. Um, but I think it's more common than that.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, Uh, I think part of what has enabled a lot of my success is being very clear on the value proposition I have with my audience. And I understood early on that I was not good at sitting in front of a camera with a microphone and going off the top of My head about thoughts I had on a certain topic. I'm the type of person who needs to sit with something, think about it for a while, put my thoughts down on paper. So then when the camera does turn on, all I'm doing is reading the thoughts I've already come up with and not, uh, being forced to come up with them on the fly. There are plenty of graders who are very good with coming up with things on the fly. And their value proposition to their audience is they are the first or they are the quickest, whatever. That's just not my value proposition.

Speaker D: Or they have no idea what they're going to say. So they're kind of along for the ride, um, with you.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: I think there's sort of like a chaos risk factor that is, uh, entertaining. I certainly watch creators like that where you're like, I have no idea where this is going to go, but I like this person or how they present. And so I'm going to listen to them. Ah, that's just not my value proposition to my audience. So, you know, I hope. I hope for Sid and Siraj that they come to understand. And really what I got out of this episode was that they're still working through a lot of this and they're seven months in and they are still figuring a lot of it out. I mean, they even talked about how the show, the weekly show that they do now isn't really even in its final form. How they want it to be live and, um, up to date. And to me, that means that their value proposition has to be getting really good at giving their takes in the moment and being really quick. Because right now it seems like they probably just exist in this weird middle ground where they're not quick enough to have that value, their value proposition, but they're not spending enough time with the material to have that be their value proposition. And there's this messy middle area. You don't want to exist for too long.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Which is where they are right now.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, a little bit. But they're figuring it out. Seems like they have the Runway to figure it out. And I hope they figure it out.

Speaker D: Totally. Me too. Me too. Um, the other. Nope, I'm not even going to go there. Not even going to go there. I was going to talk about a 16Z, but. But it, uh, is not. You know what? I'll talk about it. I think that especially with a big company like A16Z, for those of you that don't know, they're probably a top four VC firm, um, Globally.

Speaker A: Mark Andreessen Horowitz.

Speaker D: Uh, correct firm. Yeah, correct, correct. Um, so Mark Hendriesen Ben Horowitz, tech founders and the 90s and 2000s sold started a VC firm. And um, it's interesting they position themselves as a media company now and the way that they monetize is through the VC stuff. But I think it's a, uh, way for them to soften the harsh reality of what the brand is, which is just um, a financial operator. And at the end of the day they are a company that is dependent uh, on the best deal flow. And they think that it's going to come through that media stuff, not the other way around. The media part of that business is not large enough to sustain the outsized returns that they are projecting for the people that give them money. So I just think you just got to be careful with stuff like that where somebody will tell you one thing. But, but in reality, like, you know, they're really doing some Jedi stuff behind the scenes and like what they're trying to do is something else. Even though it's very similar. Very similar.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, I think your point is sometimes you're not playing the same game. Like uh, they, Sid and Siraj mentioned TPP end, uh, quite a bit. I don't know Jake, if you're familiar with them, but not really. They were a live tech and business show that similar to Sid and Siraj were clipping like crazy. They didn't carry a lot of concurrent viewers when they were live, but their clips were getting distributed everywhere and then ended up getting bought by OpenAI after a very short amount of time doing the show. They got bought by OpenAI for rumored hundred plus million. And Sam Altman was very open about why he bought the show, which was we don't have good marketing and we want better marketing. And so the same way Andreessen Horowitz is spinning up a media arm. Um, OpenAI said we just want to want media to help us be more liked. And there's no real ROI on that. Like the show doesn't have to make the money. Although there's a lot of good reporting that DPBN was making money when OpenAI bought them. But the point is they're playing a different game than what somebody like Sid and Siraj might be doing, which is there's a bit more urgency for them to show a return on whatever this media investment into them is. Whereas there's other A16Z or TPBNs of the world that don't necessarily have to show that return because they're just playing a different game.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker D: Well, let's wrap on that.

Speaker A: Okay, we'll wrap on that. If you want our takeaways similar to how Sid and Siraj have a newsletter, we have a newsletter. You've heard of it? Bob the 9th co subscribe. You can get our takeaways in written form there every Wednesday when these episodes drop and then a little freebie. It's all free. But your little freebie is every Friday you'll get three more stories that I'm covering in sports of business. Jake, thanks for joining me.

Speaker D: Yeah, thanks. And their newsletter is really good, by the way.

Speaker A: It is good newsletter.

Speaker D: I read through a couple of them.

Speaker A: Different value proposition too. A little bit more on some of this stuff.

Speaker D: Yeah. Sign up for both.

Speaker A: Sign up for both. Yeah, it's free. It's free.

Speaker D: You can sign up for both for sure.