From Larry To Sly, Fiz to Gambling, A Week of Lessons From The Road
“I’d like to think I’m going to be the best version of myself on the last day of my life. I will never stop being busy.”
That quote from comedian Martin Short, as part of a great piece with friend and fellow funnyman Steve Martin on CBS Sunday this past weekend was a great way to sum up an eight day stretch of business, storytelling, family, listening and learning from legends of the past, present and future as well as some of the smartest thinkers and strategists on the planet.
So let’s get started.
May 17 Rumble On The River: What do you get when you take over 20 Olympic and world champion wrestlers, a new facility built by ESPN hard by the Brooklyn Bridge, scores of high school success stories in the class and the mat, a few thousand fans, and a great cause? You get “Beat The Streets” annual massive fundraiser that fills the needs of hundreds of inner-city kids who have taken to the values of the Olympic sport of wrestling. The new setting, which included a tour for world champions Jake Herbert, Robbie Smith and Adeline Gray on to the set of the new morning show “Get UP,” provided an amazing backdrop to raise over $1 million again for the program in one night. It was also the first event on the top of ESPN’s new New York home, showing that wrestling, the original Olympic sport, can still come up with fun and innovative first-ever ideas for promoting in the 21st Century.
May 18-20; George Washington University Graduation, Washington, DC: Our daughter Christine’s graduation from GW, cum laude with a degree in Bio, was also now without its interesting brushes with experience. First up, we shared a commencement with Larry David, whose daughter also walked at GW. I know this well because three years ago to the day, at CitiField, David was watching BP with the Mets while we were there with the cast of “Dinner With The Boys.” I tapped him on the shoulder and said to him “We have something in common,” and he gave me the LD look expecting to hear a Seinfeld story. My answer was, “We both have daughters at GW.” Immediately the ice was broken and we chatted for 20 minutes about the price of tuition and fast growing young women. Three years later, we made it LD.
The official commencement, the only one held on the National Mall, with the Capitol in the background, also had its breathtaking moments on a hot DC Sunday, with Dr. Marcia McNutt, President of the National Academy of Sciences, delivering the address. She gave us some great thoughts on the value of hope, and how it is created…her words:
Hope is inspired when you can:
Dream like the artist
Show the heart of a humanist
Formulate solutions like the scientist
And Execute projects with the precision of an engineer.
Great storytelling once again, delivers a key message for all.
May 21: Stopping in at CREED II in Philly. Our trek back north had a stop for me, as my wife Laura dropped me outside of Philly on to the set of CREED II for a media day with cast and crew. There will be more to come in the future on the lessons learned in a short period of time from the oldest on set (Sly Stallone) to one of the youngest (30 year old director and Cavs fan Steven Caple Jr.) as well as all those in between, but suffice to say it was a day of amazing storytelling again, something which fans of the Rocky franchise will be enjoying in the fall.
May 22: “Just tell the truth.” Sports PR Summit at Players Tribune: The brainchild of our longtime friend Brian Berger, the annual Sports PR Summit went above and beyond for all those who attended, with storytelling from coaches, players, media types, former coaches and communications experts big and small. Even more impressive than the lineup was the diversity. Some of the key takeaways from the day.
While two of the biggest brand reinventions in sports and entertainment in recent years remain Alex Rodriquez and Michel Vick, Vick’s humanistic and honest rise remains at the top of the pile. His 45 minute talk with Ric Bucher was honest, forthright and passionate, with no areas left uncovered.
Vick talked openly about the lessons learned through his time in prison, the valuing of listening to people willing to tell him no, his maturation as a person, the understanding of how telling the truth can avoid a widening web of lies. One person in the room who covered Vick during his darkest days, one which left him penniless and without much of a support system, mentioned that his transformation was well, transformative. “I was there and I didn’t want to like him today. To be honest, it’s really hard not to when you see how he has turned things around,” she said.
Then there was new Knicks coach David Fizdale, whose open and honest conversation with Brian Berger was also a highlight of the day of storytelling.
Fizdale’s keys to building relationships and solving issues with media? Lunch. Meet someone for lunch or coffee. Personal touches, knowing who you are dealing with goes a long way.
What does he expect those advising him to do? Pretty simple:
1 Avoid the landmines
2 Save me from myself.
- Be honest with me, that builds trust.
Won’t be easy to do all of that in and around the New York media, but keeping it real will help Fiz in the Apple for sure.
The day actually began with a pointed discussion about dealing with crisis. While it’s tough to compare the worries of player trades that the Phoenix Coyotes make with the life and death issues Southwest Airlines has faced (and both were talked about on the panel), one of the clearest messages; the need for a clear voice, a clear perspective and calm and consistent thought in a crisis was perhaps the most relevant point, put forth by industry veteran Matthew Hiltzik of Hiltzik Strategies.
“Mistakes are made when you react quickly and are not thinking down the road.”
Another takeaway from the afternoon revolved around the value of caring in storytelling. We all have heard the word “passion” used almost daily with regard to fandom, but what the Player’s Tribune has built revolves around how much that passion for sports needs to be tied to a personal and emotional connection that goes deeper than what goes on in a game or a match. That has been the PT DNA, and has what made them so successful with storytelling big and small.
“You are not going to care about a team or a league if you don’t care about the story or the person.” Jessica Robertson of the Players Tribune summed it up.
May 23: Listening to Leaders. Wednesday was the midpoint of Leaders Week, so we got to spend a day listening from some of the deeper, more inclusive and inspiring folks in and out of sports business. If you have never heard Peter Moore, now CEO of Liverpool FC, give a talk on storytelling, you should. Moore’s discussion on the passion and brand value that Liverpool has was inspiring. He also dropped in a little tidbit about his disruptive nature around the Premier League, where change sometimes come slow at the top of the world’s elite clubs.
“I think I’m the only Premier League CEO on Twitter,” Moore said. “Is it a hairy ride from time to time? You bet. But it’s about engaging. It’s about showing that I care. If you’re the CEO of Liverpool Football Club, you damn well better show you care.”
Caring and storytelling was also the brand story of LEGO, which we covered in an earlier post you can read here with CMO Julia Goldin .
“It will succeed as long as there is massive cooperation amongst the stakeholders.” –Steven Burton
The day ended with a discussion of the ever-growing elephant in the room; sports gambling and where it is going in the United States. The talk included Steven Burton of Genius Sports, Andy Cunningham of Sportradar and of Matthew Drew of Perform Group. The theme at the end of the day: working together will tell the tale.
How will sports gambling work? Two stages, per Drew “First is additive benefit of new companies & jobs, 2nd will then be fan engagement opportunities in venue.”
May 24: We taped our upcoming podcast with athlete turned digital entrepreneur Blake Lawrence co-founder of the athlete and brand platform opendorse. Lawrence’s discussion of how he went from creating a digital business to help local brands on social on the practice fields while starting linebacker at the University of Nebraska to how he and fellow Huskers star Adi Kunalic had the vision for opendorse will be impressive to hear later this week. Even more impressive is the fact that FRIDAY opendorse was named one of Inc’s “Best Companies To Work For,” one of only three businesses involved in sports to make the list. opendorses’s understanding of athletes social handles as channels to reach the consumer directly has really made them invaluable to their partners, big and small.
Then the last bit of storytelling excellence came up at Columbia, where I was lucky enough to sit in on John Currie’s second to last class on the business of college athletics. Currie spent a week as “Faculty in residence” at Columbia, and his ability to communicate best practices and translate the issues of college athletics to students is amazing, and it was a worthwhile few hours to wrap the week before Memorial Day weekend.
The sights and sounds, personally and professionally in what was a crazy busy and on the move week were worth all the time and effort, and the connecting and reconnecting with family and friends as exhausting but well worth the trips.
People and Places not things, right? And on we go.