1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations 1-On-1: Sports Business Conversations

This is a difficult intro to do for this episode. I want to tell you all about my guest Jason Romero to draw you in. But I also don’t want to provide any spoilers to our conversation. I just want you to learn about his unbelievable story on your own.

Because his story is just that: unbelievable. I promise that when you listen you’ll have a few “oh wow” moments, followed by “wait, what?” moments, followed by a “you have got to be kidding me” moments.

I’m just glad I get to share his story with you. It’s inspiring, it’s crazy, it’s motivational, it’s… well, it’ s a lot of things. But mostly it’s a story of how a man just wouldn’t let his light fade.


ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The 1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports.

Website: adcpartners.com/podcast
Instagram: adc_partners_podcast
Threads: adc_partners_podcast
Youtube: @adcpartners


YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.

There’s been so much change so quickly in sports business that there’s a bunch of stuff that seems normal now that I wouldn’t have even believed possible just 10 years ago. Paying college athletes. Watching games on your phone. Pro teams in Vegas.


And there’s online gaming, a market that is currently estimated at about $10B a year, and is projected to grow by 12% annually through the end of this decade.


That kind of growth is what puts a gleam in the eye of this episodes guest, Kyle Christensen, the Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer of Splash, Inc.


With a rapidly growing user base that recently surpassed 2 million, Splash is turning heads in the online gaming industry with a social approach to their contests. It’s a strategy that falls right in the wheelhouse for Christensen, a veteran of the entertainment and social media industries.


In our conversation, we talk about how his experiences at companies like Warner Brothers, Meta and Netflix prepared him for taking the reins at Splash. We also go into how Splash is differentiating themselves from the industry’s biggest players, what draws him to companies that like to throw bricks through the windows of the status quo, and why maybe breaking down that firewall between personal and business is a good idea.


And if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to incur the wrath of hard core comic book fans, he’ll let you know what that’s like, too.


Just a heads up, there’s some explicit language in this episode.


ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The 1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports.

Website: adcpartners.com/podcast
Instagram: adc_partners_podcast
Threads: adc_partners_podcast
Youtube: @adcpartners

YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.

From the outside looking in, working in sports can seem a little glamourous, I suppose. You know what I mean. Multi-billion dollar media rights deals. Major events located in sparkling new stadiums in global capitals around the world. New companies focused on delivering sports in totally different ways mushrooming up all over the place. Yeah, seems pretty sexy.


But the success of everything I just described rests on the back of the two things that are absolutely indispensable in sports business: the humble event ticket and the ability to sell that humble event ticket.

And few people know more about the importance of those t
wo things than my guest in this episode, Travis Apple, the Chief Revenue Officer of digital ticketing platform Logitix.


Travis has spent his working life honing the craft of ticket sales for teams in the NBA, MLB, NHL and more. Now with Logitix, he’s taking that knowledge and combining it with new tools that make sure teams are getting the absolute most revenue from their ticketing programs.


In our conversation, Travis talks about his career arc, and drops some legendary industry names that have mentored him along the way. He touches on the transition from working FOR sports to working WITH sports at Logitix, and how that company is altering the ticketing market. He also takes time to drop more essential sales wisdom than any 35 minute podcast should have.


ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The 1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports.

Website: adcpartners.com/podcast
Instagram: adc_partners_podcast
Threads: adc_partners_podcast
Youtube: @adcpartners


YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.

As we get started on this episode, I want you to take a second and think about the qualities that define you. What are the different things that make you… you? Do you love those qualities? Or are they something you feel like you need to battle?


For my guest Ryan Neiswender, it took time for him to learn to love the quality he hated most about himself. But when he did, he reached the loftiest heights an athlete can reach.


Ryan was born with Arthrogryposis, a rare condition that impacted the development of his legs. By the age of 8, he would need to use a wheelchair to get around. But rather than feel constrained by his chair, Ryan felt he could move effortlessly.


Then one day his parents took the sports obsessed Ryan to a nearby wheel chair basketball clinic, and the rest is history. Actual literal history, because Ryan went on to not only excel at the sport, he ended up winning a gold medal for Team USA at the 2020 Paralympic games in Tokyo.


In our conversation we talk at length about Ryan’s journey and what he’s learned about himself along the way. We go into the highs of winning a gold medal, and more recent lows associated with the sport. But most importantly, we talk about the mindset and strategies he’s developed that prepare him to deal with those emotional peaks and valleys.


ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The 1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports.


Website: adcpartners.com/podcast
Instagram: adc_partners_podcast
Threads: adc_partners_podcast
Youtube: @adcpartners


YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.

If you’re in this industry, you know that Sports business is a really dynamic industry. Change is happening all the time. New trends emerge, different technologies are adopted, audience tastes change on what seems like a minute-by-minute basis… it can be a lot.

And nowhere is this more true than in college sports, particularly in terms of name-image-likeness, or NIL. In the last couple of years, the ability of college athletes to make money promoting products and services has fundamentally and (to the consternation of some) irreversible reshaped college sports. Everyone seems to have an opinion about it. And, let’s be clear: lots of those opinions are from people who aren’t, or never were, college athletes.

So let’s change that up and hear from my guest, Sabrina Oostburg. Sabrina is currently enrolled at Belmont College in Nashville Tennessee, a small school you probably never heard of. She competes in track and field throwing events like the hammer toss, and event you’ve most likely never seen.

Yet somehow Sabrina, competing in an esoteric sport for a little-known school, is an incredibly successful NIL athlete. She’s currently managing a stable of over 20 NIL deals, many of which she pitched, negotiated and developed herself.

In our chat, we talk about her NIL journey, and the advice she gives other athletes wanting to replicate her success. She reveals what brands should consider to make their NIL campaigns more successful, her perspective on what makes an athlete Creator different from an Influencer, and what concerns her about the future of NIL.

She’ll also reveal the name of the YouTube video that fundamentally and forever changed her life.


ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The 1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports.

Website: adcpartners.com/podcast
Instagram: adc_partners_podcast
Threads: adc_partners_podcast
Youtube: @adcpartners


YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.

This episode’s guest is probably going to make you feel like a slacker. In fairness though? Bonnie-Jill Laflin can make just about everyone feel that way. Santa Claus on Christmas Eve looks like a lay-a-bout compared to Bonnie Jill.


We’ll get into her many MANY roles during our chat, but I will say that the first (and still only ) female NBA scout recently added another experience to her already poly-hyphenated career: author.


Bonnie Jill’s new book, “In a League of Her Own” is a testament to the many female “firsts” in sports and sports business. In it she features insights and interviews with iconic figures like Billie Jean King, Danica Patrick, and Jackie Joyner Kersee.


In our conversation, we talk about Bonnie Jill’s remarkable sports journey, the common threads she saw in the women she interviewed for the book, and even what she learned about herself while writing it. We’ll also find out if she’s a ninja. Her answer probably won’t surprise you…


ABOUT THIS PODCAST
The 1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports.

Website: adcpartners.com/podcast
Instagram: adc_partners_podcast
Threads: adc_partners_podcast
Youtube: @adcpartners


YOUR HOST
Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.