October 8, 2025 • 49 mins
LJ Rader, the man behind the uber-popular Art But Make It Sports social media account, joins Sarah to discuss what inspired him to start the account, why it’s so important to him to credit photographers, and his philosophy of covering women’s sports. Plus, the Phoenix Mercury look to make things interesting in game 3 of the WNBA Finals, Napheesa Collier gets back on the mic, and MNBA commissioner Adam Silver enters the chat.
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Listen to the episode feat. Cindy Brunson here and Sabreena Merchant here
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Follow LJ’s account Art But Make It Sports on Bluesky here and on Instagram here
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Check out producer Alex’s powerpoint for her drawing class here
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The surfing comparison to “The Garden of Earthly Delights” can be seen here
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The U.S. soccer comparison to the “Incredulity of Saint Thomas” can be seen here
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The hockey comparison to “Untitled” by Joan Mitchell can be seen here
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The Syd Colson comparison to “Woman on her Deathbed” can be seen here
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The Paige Bueckers and Haley Jones comparison to “The Mother and Sister of the artist” can be seen here
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The Trinity Rodman comparison to “Untitled” by Hilm
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're digging
into the archives for picks of me throwing the javelin
to send to today's guest. If he can jext opose
me with Picasso's Guernica or Bochoni's The Charge of the
Lancers or something. I'll brag about it for the rest
of my life. It's Wednesday, October eighth, and on today's show,
we'll be chatting with l J Raider, the man behind
the uber popular Art but Make It Sports social media account.
(00:23):
We discuss what inspired him to start the account, why
it's so important for him to credit photographers, the book
he's releasing next year, and the women's college volleyball app
he's working on, plus the Phoenix Mercury look to make
things interesting. In Game three of the WNBA Finals tonight,
Naviisa Callier gets back on the mic and MNBA Commissioner
Adam Silver enters the chat. It's all coming up right
(00:44):
after this welcome back slices. Here's what you need to
know today. In hoops. Game three of the WNBA Finals
between the Las Vegas Aces and the Phoenix Mercury is tonight.
(01:06):
The Aces currently hold a two zero lead in the
best of seven series, after taking full advantage of playing
on home court in the first two contests. The series
is in Phoenix for tonight's matchup and for Game four.
If the Mark can't take care of business this evening,
we could see a sweep for the Aces on Friday.
You can catch tonight's action tipping off at eight pm
Eastern on ESPN. And if you're playing catch up on
(01:28):
the series, take a listen to our interviews with Cindy
Brunson and Sabrina Merchant from the past couple episodes. They
both did an excellent job breaking things down. We'll link
to those in our show notes. More w and more
on the Kathy Engelbert and a Fisa Collier Saga Collier
spoke about her comments regarding WNBA leadership publicly for the
first time on Monday in a sit down with none
(01:49):
other than former Vice president Kamala Harris. The chat took
place in Los Angeles during an annual one day summit
for activists, change makers, and storytellers called a Day of
Unreasonable Cosation. Here's a bit of what call your head
to say.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I never had planned to do that before you know,
I am on the union for our CB and negotiations,
but at markeating.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Negotiations for our meat.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
And so for so long, I felt like I saw
what was going on.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Behind closed doors.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
For so long, we tried to have these conversations and
move the needle in those meetings that we would have
with the league, you know, within our leadership, and I
saw nothing was changing. You know, coaches winning and losing
a light, were complaining about the same things over and
over again, players over and over again, and.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
We weren't seeing a change that our leadership was trying
to make.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
And I think I just got to the point where
I was fed up. And you know, you talked about
this with me backstage.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It just resonated so much.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's just like whether I was going to get you know,
annihilated for this, or people are.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Going to support me. I felt what I was doing
was right.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I felt like it needed to be said, so no
matter the consequences, I felt like it was something that
needed to be done.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Nothing unreasonable about that. We're now twenty four days out
from the Halloween deadline for collective bargaining agreement negotiations. Will
continue to keep you up to speed on all the
happenings and relevant dialogue around it. Speaking of relevant dialogue,
MNBA Commissioner Adam Silver has entered the chat. He spoke
up on Monday, adding his two cents during a press conference.
(03:17):
He said, in part, quote, there's no question that the
WNBA is going through growing pains, and it's unfortunate that
it's coming just as their most important games and their
finals are on right now. He continued, quote, Kathy Engelbert
has presided over historic growth in the league, but there's
no question that there's issues that we need to address
with our players, not just economic there's relationship issues as well.
(03:39):
I'm confident we can fix those over time and this
league can continue to be on the rocket trajectory that
it's on right now. End quote. Silver also said, quote,
we will get a deal done with the players. Lots
of work left to be done, but will of course
get a new collective bargaining agreement end quote. Silver is
confident a deal will get done, though we didn't put
a timeline on when you remember, Engelbert told press on
(04:02):
Friday that there may need to be an extension if
negotiations don't conclude in time. Silver is responsible for both
hiring and firing the WNBA commissioner, and he's been involved
in CBA negotiations as well as the MNBA is a
parent company of the WNBA. All Right, slices. There is
so much to talk about when it comes to the
ongoing conversation about the WNBA and leadership. So it's time
(04:24):
for another very quick, we promise this time, give me
a minute. Let's start the clock. Alex, I know you,
in particular, had some thoughts about what Adam Silver had
to say.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yeah, I had some thoughts on both Adam's comments as
well as what we have seen from the media in general,
talking especially about mainstream outlets and people that don't necessarily
cover the WNBA all the time, because we have seen
a lot of words.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
Like embarrassing, controversial, shameful getting thrown out in headlines and
on Chiron's And I want to just stop for a second,
because anytime I see those words, I always want to
ask embarrassing for whom, controversial for whom?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And it was interesting. I had a conversation with a
friend last week who doesn't follow the WNBA at all,
and I was like, yeah, it's been a busy couple days,
and she recoiled almost as if like, yeah, I heard
like it's bad out there, and I was like, wait,
I didn't know that that was going to be her reaction,
because to me, it's not bad out there. I think
that it's this incredible moment of power and claiming worth.
(05:28):
And that's to me what I saw Few's comments as,
and so whenever I see this embarrassing label get thrown out,
I pause a that you know, in Adam Silver's comments,
he said, I think it's unfortunate, particularly at this moment
when as the league, we'd all love the attention to
be on these incredible finals. Okay, it's unfortunate, well, you
know who. It's unfortunate for the league front office. I
(05:49):
don't think it's unfortunate for the players. I think it's
a well timed play by the players to make this
stand when they did. For Fee to make her statement
in her exit interview, it's extremely calculated. So this is
my call to media in general to think about the
words that they use as they are telling this story.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Speaking of words, for those who don't know, a chiron
is the words that are on a TV screen telling
you who someone is, sponting who they are, or telling
you what they're talking about or explaining what the story
might be. So, in case you missed that alexistrapin TV
knowledge on all, y'all, I agree with you for the
most part. I mean, I think I understand a bit
(06:32):
of the recoiling or the response from people outside of
the league to what's going on, because it is very
rare to see a player directly call out a commissioner
and to attribute quotes to that commissioner that I do
find embarrassing. So the word embarrassing is accurate for Kathy
Engelbert and trying to defend the idea that she would
say the players should be on their knees thanking me
(06:52):
that specific language, or the idea that Caitlin Clark should
be grateful because she wouldn't be making buckets of money
without the w These things are embarrassing for someone running
a league. But I get your point, and I do
think there is a sexism at play to some of
the language people are using to discuss this ongoing conversation
between Fee and the rest of the players and WNBA leadership.
(07:15):
It doesn't seem to be treated as much like a
business conflict as it might. I think if it were
an am men's sport. A lot of it is about relationships,
it's personal or even the language of its embarrassing or
uncomfortable or unfortunate, feels like the girls are fighting kind
of as opposed to this is a serious business that
(07:38):
is at a massive inflection point, and this badass, informed, educated,
well spoken, concise, specific, knife edge sharp player just laid
open her own leadership to the point where it feels
(07:59):
like the commission might not get per job anymore. And
in any other space, I think that's talked about in
a business sense and said there is some language that
feels a little bit sexist. Yep, wholeheartedly agree.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
And just to sum it up, please do not point
that big loaded word at an a Fisa Collier, because
nothing she did was embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Everything she did was brave, was courageous, was.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
Exactly what we've come to expect from somebody like herself,
who has not only built up her stature in this league,
but we've seen her kind of come out of her show.
Like I remember when she was at Yukon. I did
not think it was gonna give. I'm gonna put the
commission of WNBA on a spit and roaster in front
of everybody like I did not think that's what it
was gonna give for Fee at all, So do not
(08:43):
point that E word at her, that's all Kathy.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, And I would just love to see the look
on Kathy's face when Fia ends up on stage with
Kamala Harris talking about her commentary on the leadership of
the League talk about E third.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, I was feeling a little bit hurt when Fee
rejected our interview requests for Enjoying number two a couple
of days ago. But you know, if you gotta go
talk to Kamala first, that's fine. We'll be here, though, Fie.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Speaking of this might be a very organic moment to
point out that somebody else we care about is rejecting
us in favor of a high placed political figure.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Hm.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
We didn't necessarily plan this for today, but it feels
a little bit too perfect for me to point out,
Thanks Obama, because we're beloved, Misha is leaving us now.
They have a good reason. They used to work for
Higher Ground, the Obama's production company, and they have been
requested to return. I can only imagine buckets of money
(09:47):
being thrown at them because of their incredible talent, but
Misha's leaving us, and I don't know. Do you want
to say a quick word about how much of a
trader you are?
Speaker 6 (10:00):
I don't envision this ripping is gonna end anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
No, definitely not.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
Goodness, Well, as this was not planned, I do not
have a prepared statement like the Fisa Kaer did.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
It's not for you. Do you have one week to
think about your final words and how many orange puns
you want to include?
Speaker 5 (10:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
My goodness.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
What I will say is I am very excited about
what we have been able to do with Good Game.
I'm very sad to be leaving. I'm very sad that
this will not be the environment I'm working moving forward
with these two knuckleheads, you know, making fun of me
for being a child and all the other things that
come with it. But yeah, y'all, I'm headed up out
(10:46):
of here. But thank you to everybody who listens on
a regular or if you don't, if you listen on
a one off, we love you too, and that's fine.
But I'm certainly gonna miss getting out here and chatting
with you all. Given my takes, even when they're half baked,
give them a takes on all things basketball. Because you
know that's my jam, and it just feels fitting that
(11:07):
we're in the WNBA finals while you know I'm making
my final rounds here on Big Games. Thank you so
much for bringing that on me, and we'll give you
another chance to say goodbye before your final day, which
is about a week or so from now.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
But there is going to be one third of Big
Citrus that will no longer be in the grove, which
does mean we are going to be looking for a
new orange to appeel. I don't know where this continued
metaphor is going. This is embarrassing, honestly, and it does
feel like I wasn't even given a chance to negotiate,
(11:45):
like the WNBA CBA Mesh was just like oh Michelle
Obama piece. Can't blame them all. Right, on that note,
we got to take a break more with Mesh leaving
us on another show. But for now, when we come back,
art imitates like my sport is life and sport imitates art.
Try to keep up, y'all. Welcome back slices. Before we
(12:15):
get to my conversation with LJ, a heads up that
we're going to be referencing a bunch of visual stuff,
so we'll link to everything we talk about in the
show notes if you want to pull things up and
reference them while listening. All right, now onto my chat
with LJ joining us now. He's the CMO, the chief
meme officer of the super popular social media account Art
(12:35):
But Make It Sports, and his quote unquote real job
is the head of broadcast products at Sports Radar. A
Vanderbilt grad, he studied human and organizational development, not art,
but somehow he knows exactly which Picasso statue mirror Sabrina
Gescu in the tunnel, and just which Claude Monet piece
to pair with Taylor Swift looking out a frozen window
at a Chief's game. Producer Alex has been his biggest
(12:55):
fan since meeting him at the twenty twenty one NWSL Championship,
and once she even convinced to drawing teacher to let
her copy in art but sports post aka art but
make it Sports but make it Art again. His memes
are famous, but the man is a mystery. Until now
it's LJ Raider. Hi, LJ, thanks for coming on, Sarah,
thanks for having me. We're going to get to the
book that you're writing and a volleyball project that you're
(13:18):
working on. But first I want to set the stage
for folks who are not super fans, like this show
is of art, but make it sports. And I want
to start with your background. I assumed like art history
major or something, but no, So where does this love
and appreciation of art come from?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, so, first off, thanks for having me on. Super
excited to be here. I think you were one of
the first people in sports media to take notice, maybe
because I was bugging you to check out the account.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
But it was so good it did not feel like
a chore to support.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Crazy to think how far, how far it's kind of
come and grown. But yeah, I actually come from the
sports side, which I think is surprises people across all
of sports. And you know, I'll watch anything that's that's
on TV if it, you know, has a competitive angle
against it. The art comes from I think my grandparents.
(14:14):
They they were appreciators of art. My grandfather owned a
garage in the village and there were a bunch of
artists that were had spots there and could never pay,
and they would always trade their art. And so whenever
I'd visit my grandparents' house, they had a pretty eclectic
collection and a handful of those artists, you know, ended
(14:34):
up becoming famous and sort of just always surrounded by
art and always interested, but only took one class in
college and ended up just kind of teaching myself a
bunch on the side.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
That's cool. So the sports side, where'd you grow up
and how did that result in? Which teams excite and
haunt you as a result.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, so I'm from from New York, about an hour
outside of the city. So I'm let's see, I'm a Yankees,
Liberty Knicks, guest Giants fan, but last ten years hasn't
really been relevant. And then all things Vanderbilt sports. So
(15:14):
we have a new women's volleyball team, which is exciting.
The football team is good this year. We've always been
good in soccer, so I try to follow the Predators
for hockey, but they also haven't been all too good recently.
And then just kind of anything that's on I'm a
fan of. It's less about kind of the teams I
(15:36):
support and just being able to consume sports.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, you reminded me that I meant to shout out
Vanderbilt bringing back volleyball when the season started, and it
completely slipped my mind with everything else going on, but
here it is shout out Vanderbilt for bringing back women's volleyball.
Very cool. I think I was actually in Africa when
they did the big game like to welcome it back
and the exciting kind of event around it.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
All right.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I checked out your LinkedIn. Most of your jobs have
been sort of related to sports, but almost all include products.
You product in the title. This includes your current role
as head of broadcast products, but you've also been a
product manager, product specialist. And I'm mostly unfamiliar with real careers.
I have a made up job. I pretty much always have,
(16:19):
so I do not know what these jobs are. What
does it mean to constantly be around products? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:26):
So I've always been fascinated by obviously sports, so it
happens on the fields and courts, but also how people
consume sports, and how are they able to watch it,
how are they able to stream it? What is it
that they can learn about it from an editorial perspective,
and then what are the sort of pipelines and foundations
(16:49):
that need to be in place to support somebody's fandom.
Always been drawn to that and decided to make a
career out of that, so originally starting the editor side,
so worked at a Rhodo World as a writer and
that was within the NBC Sports family. It was a
producer on the Olympics, so doing some long form short
(17:14):
form on the athletes in the combat sports, so boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo,
and wrestling, So getting to know their stories and being
able to go to, you know, pre Olympic events that
they were doing trainings for and being able to kind
of translate their dreams and ambitions into something that the
(17:36):
public could consume from an editorial perspective. And then was
working still within NBC Sports, but then moved to a
role on their live streaming app. From there, worked at
DraftKings early on again on the product side, and then
I've been at my current role for I think eight
(17:59):
years now. I think no matter what I did in
the sports world, kind of realized that at the foundation
you need data to power things. So the company I
work for now is a data company and helps unlock
sports experiences for different folks. And then my focus is
on the broadcast space. So all of this to say,
(18:22):
you know, how do you kind of empower storytelling and
help fans watch what they want to watch.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
So you're working at sports radar what happens that inspires
the start of art, but make it sports and do
you remember the first pairing?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Yeah, So it's always been just kind of a hobby
of mine, or like a framework of mine to whether
it be an art museum or kind of anything and
see it in a sports lens. So when I first
started out, it was just on my personal Instagram being
able to post images from a museum and then just
giving it, you know, stupid sports captions. And then over time,
(19:00):
I'm I had friends tell me that, you know, you
should make this its own thing, so started its own
Instagram account. And at the very beginning it was just
kind of like literally putting captions on top of the artwork.
And then I found myself time after time the captions
being something like this looks like this thing, and then
it kind of clicked it, okay, like when I just
(19:20):
put the thing next to the thing it looks like
and that's when I kind of kind of took off.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So I love that. So you didn't really have much
of a goal early on. It was just kind of
amusing yourself and then your friends told you to make
an account. Were you surprised when anybody else seemed to
take notice, because it does feel like you did actively
look for some folks to take notice like me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah, So I still don't think I have a goal
with the account other than to amuse myself. It is
fun to watch it grow and watch the community grow,
But at the end of the day, I think, from
like a content perspective, I think I knew that it
would be like it would resonate with people, just because
(20:02):
I guess one of the things I pride myself on
is having my finger on the pulse of sort of
what sports fans are looking for and like what makes
good content. When I worked at Rhoda World, they had
a pretty high editorial bar, and that kind of got
instilled in me in terms of, you know, I could
(20:22):
make a hundred posts, but probably focusing on the five
to ten that are actually really really high quality, and
you know, sort of always assessing what I'm putting out
there and making sure maybe it towes the line, but
it isn't going to go over the line. And so
I knew that the content itself was gonna eventually take off.
(20:42):
But I still only really do it to keep myself
sharp and to have fun and to kind of just
contribute in my little corner of the Internet, to which
I wish it was like there were more accounts like mine,
And I feel like the Internet is now just kind
of overrun by slop and people feeling stuff from other
people and not great. So that's kind of demoralizing. But
(21:08):
maybe that helps me, I guess, keep the account around
for even longer, just knowing that it becomes rare and
rare for.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, it's a bit of an antidote to the rest
of what's going on. Do you remember which of the
early posts was the first to really blow up where
we were like, oh my god, people are seeing this.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I don't know if there was one in particular it was.
I think when you, honestly when you posted about the account,
I think it jumped from like one hundred people that
followed to a thousand. Oh nice, Oh my god, there
are a thousand people, which was cool. So yeah, things
definitely went viral on Twitter a lot over the course
of the first few years, So go up and like
(21:48):
kind of plateau.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah again. You know, you always seem to have women's
sports on your radar, posting about them along with men's sports,
and obviously for many of us that seems obvious, and
there's way more if you include both. But for a
whole lot of folks, women exist in the sports world
only as like cheerleaders, moms, or wags. So it's sadly
actually noteworthy that you do that, And it's kind of
(22:09):
like the Bechdel test except for sexism, and sports media
producer Alex actually calls it the scroll test. For her,
if you go to the front page of a sports
news media website, how far do you have to scroll
until you actually get to a story or a post
about women's sports. And you know, even back when it
was literal newspapers where there was a fold, women's sports
would usually be buried below the fold. But you've always
(22:30):
featured them prominently. So I wonder if this was a
conscious decision or you've always just naturally included them while
watching and thinking about.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Sports, always naturally included while watching and thinking about sports.
I think one of the things I'm proud of is that, like,
the account is now kind of part of the zeitgeist
and sort of culture, and I don't think I've ever
seen a comment come through on you know, whether Instagram
or Twitter, being like, why are you posting this a
(23:00):
women's sports event, and I think the community that I've
grown they sort of see the world the same way
that I do, and that sports are sports and it
doesn't matter who's playing it. But I am I'm definitely
proud of the fact that, like I don't know, the
community trust me to post whatever I think is I
deem worthy of posting, And to me, I think of
(23:22):
anything that's whether it's men's women's sports, regardless of what
sport it is, that's worth kind of putting out there.
I have a hard time now because of I guess
how much demand there is for people sending photos and
tagging me and things to kind of keep up with stuff.
It is helpful to get imagery from people as opposed
(23:44):
to me having to go and scour and find it.
So in that sense, I wish I could be doing
a lot more just across the board. But I've never
really thought about, you know, the kind of ratio between
men's and women's sports. Now I am so I wrote
a book which is fun and in that I kind
(24:04):
of deliberately spend time not just thinking about kind of
the number of men's and women's sports that are posted
in there, but just making sure just representation across the board,
whether it's you know, female artists and you know artists
from underrepresented communities and times, just because that is also
a part of art history and so definitely made like
(24:28):
conscious decisions there in that. But on the on the
day to day just whatever I see that's you know, artistic,
I'll throw out.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah. So the book's called the Art but make it
sports epic matchups where art and sports collide. It'll be
released in March of twenty twenty six. How much writing
is there in it? Like, do you tell the story
of some of the artists or the sports moments or
is it more like the visuals?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Each page has releast some texts, some
more than others. I I wrote everything myself. I didn't
use any AI. I don't know how good the writing
actually is. There's some old posts in there that I
feature a kind of just talk my talk through my
process and things that you know, people might have missed
(25:14):
because there aren't necessarily just visual connections. There's some new
ones in there. It was fun to be able to
tackle some more historic photos because yeah, nowadays it's just
I'm posting mostly live stuff. And I don't have time
to go back and reference old stuff, so the book
gives that a lot of a lot of real estate.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Amazing. Do you have to worry about copyright infringement? Do
you have to get the rights to each piece of
art and photo you're using?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Yeah, so the art works pretty straightforward. I only used
art that was part of the public domain. You can
get rights to newer art, but it's very expensive, just
not from like a legal perspective and having a not
an area that I wanted to poke. So so on
(25:59):
that front, very straightforward. And then on the sports imagery side,
I worked with Getty and then a few other folks
that specialize in licensing sports images, and they made it
super easy, and frankly, I think they understood the project
and what I was trying. You'd say they were super helpful.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, I mean you talked about how the internet is
full of people stealing content, passing things off as their own,
Like you've long made sure on every post of yours
that you credit the photographer who took the photo. And actually,
for a lot of fans, they can actually kind of
figure out what you might be working on next because
they see you replied to a team or a league
asking who took this photograph so you can make sure
to give credit. Why are you so committed to giving credit?
(26:41):
Why is it something that you seem to know from
the beginning was important to what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
When I worked at roode A World right, they kept
a very high editorial bar, and what you would do
with the blurbs is a piece of news would break
and you would give that piece of news and then
you'd give your opinion on it. And every time that
you posted, you needed to make sure that you you
sourced your news. You couldn't just say you know, this
thing happened without saying who said it happened and where
(27:06):
it came from. Uh So I think I had that
I had that foundation sort of in me of you know,
you you have to credit where where something comes from.
I also think that the the point, the whole point
of the account is to not just highlight art, but
highlight sports photography. When I use sports photographs and there
(27:29):
are super creative people that work really hard to capture
those photographs, and I see them just as much as
artists as the you know, fine art artists that I reference.
So just like wouldn't I don't know, wouldn't feel right
to just use an image without knowing where it came
from and who took it. So yeah, I think I
(27:51):
guess it's become a little bit of like a tag
on Twitter. It is a little frustrating that, uh, you know,
these these schools and Team Stone some do, but on
the whole they kind of just post the image. I
know they have the rights to do that, but having
to chase attribution is it takes a lot of time.
(28:12):
But I'd also like it's just become I think a
big in the sports photography community that where if I
if I posted an image and didn't say where it
came from and I was the person that took the image,
I'd be pretty pissed.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah yeah, I mean I love the idea of the
book being an opportunity for people to be exposed to
art in a way that might be a little bit
of a bridge if they're not going to museums a
lot or not opening up books of art history. And
I know, for me, like I found I learned a
lot of really curious and quirky and interesting stuff from
watching like Hannah Gadsby do stand up, where she was
an art history person, and she was bringing in her
(28:46):
thoughts about historical artists and their work and you know
some of the ways that we actually view them and
don't even really critically think about what we're looking at.
One of my favorite sections is where she's like, why
are women always just standing around with like one tit out,
like this is not a thing that women do in life,
and yet somehow every piece of art is just like
ladies standing around a garden with half their dress falling off,
(29:08):
and like, sometimes you just need to see it differently.
And one of the cool things about your work. And
you went on Pablo Torre's podcast, Pabulatory Finds Out and
they kind of tested you to make sure that you're
not just dropping things into AI and you say, there
is no use of AI at all. It's coming off
the dome. But that comes from you understanding artists a
lot of the time to say, this person looks like
(29:29):
the kind of figure you would see in Rubin, This
looks like the kind of strange, weird thing that might
come up in a Picasso statue. Like you're using that knowledge,
and I feel like people reading the book might start
to see trends or understand art a little better by
virtue of using those same tricks and tips that are
living in your brain. Do you work on that to
(29:54):
stay sharp to make your matches. Do you read about
different artists and their trends or is it all sort
of like a visual learning for you?
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yeah, majority is visual, but I definitely do a ton
of reading, and I like to understand like who an
artist contemporaries are or were to be. Like, Okay, if
you know this artist maybe puts a slightly different spin
on on what this other artist does. Just a ton
of consuming, whether it's you know, reading books or Wikipedia
(30:23):
or going to museums. I just I don't know. I
just love I love art and fine art, And yeah,
I think you're like the idea of like an artist's
style and being able to, like I can see a
sports image and then maybe not know the exact painting,
but know the style that matches. I also think it's
(30:44):
a fun parallel because I do think there's like distinctions
in the sports world too, of you know, athletes that
have unique styles that you could start to recognize. I know,
I see on on Twitter there's sometimes like viral videos
of basketball players that are like blacked out as they're
shadow and then shows the clip and people have to
guess who the employer is. And you can get it
(31:04):
because you can understand the style and the movement. And
so when people will talk about how like art and
sports are, you know, you're sort of taught growing up
these you're a jock or you're a you know, an
art kid, and very like much opposed. But when you
actually spend time together with them, you kind of realize
they're the same thing. Their their motion, they're you know,
artists practice, athletes practice, they develop styles, and I think
(31:29):
you know, the account resonates because you can kind of
just you can see it.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
So, yeah, do you know offhand a couple of your
posts that have the most likes of all time are
the ones that have gotten the biggest.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah, it's always the ones that are just like low brow,
how rewarding. Right, NBA Finals, there have been a bunch
of the blown up. It's usually times when people are
all on their second screen experience. So like the share
the shared experience of watching a big, big game. Olympics,
(32:05):
tons of Olympics ones blew up. That's that's that's a
ton of fun for me, Like all the like Simone
Biles posts just when like everybody's tuning in it at once.
But yeah, it's like the lowbrow ones do well, and
then the like abstract ones tend to do well if
they're good, just because I think you can really mess
(32:27):
with somebody's head if you can get them convinced that,
like this sports image looks like this abstract painting.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So do you have a few all time favorites just
personal favorites.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I just think about the the Olympics. There's there was
the one other guy on his surfboard and he's like
riding awave and his pants fell down, so his asses out,
And that's I did to Bosh's Garden of Earthly Delights,
which is like a massive painting, tons of figures and
there's like this guy riding a fish in it with
(32:58):
his ass down. That's one I'm trying to think like
I like doing. Joan Mitchell is one of my favorite artists,
and she always comes up with hockey just because you've
got like lots of condensed bodies of colors and they're
sort of wispy, and I just get excited when I
see something that could fit into her theme. I'm trying
(33:23):
to think of like favorite favorite posts. I don't know,
it's it's cliche, but it's kind of like the next
one because sort of like an addiction to make them,
and which is also why I always find it funny
when people say that I'm I'm using AI and it's like, no, like,
the the dopamine hit that I receive from coming up
(33:43):
with the match is what I am chasing, chasing anything else,
nothing else matters. So yeah, it's like whenever I see
a fun sports image and like can come up with something,
it's like, all right, that that made me happy.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
But yeah, there's a couple of favorites I'm in a
shout out and we'll link to these in the show
notes so y'all can click to them. Very recently, Sid
Colson post surgery was matched with Woman on her Deathbed
by Elizabeth Walker. That was a great one, and you
know Sid's got a sense of humor, so she loved
that one. I'm sure Paigebackers and Hayley Jones watching their
(34:19):
coach Chris coklanis drop a play was paired with the
mother and sister of the artist Berth Morisot. Is that
how you say that?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Because I don't have actual art history experience. I don't
have pronounced names because I've never actually said them.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I've just yes, they're all just written. Yeah. Well, I'm
sure someone will call in and tell us if we're
getting it wrong. That's pretty much guaranteed. The Trinity Rodman
Pink Hair Flip, which was just an outstanding photograph, so
I really should be shouting out the photographer too. But
you paired that with an untitled piece by Hilma f Clint,
(34:56):
which was amazing, the Rose lavel yelling. It was like
an Edgar Degas called Singer with a Glove, which is
just great because Rose just kind of looks like a
Victorian era woman at all times, and that in particular
she had this very dated Degas sort of glossy, vague
look about her somehow even though the photo was in focus.
(35:18):
That was a great one. And then yet another Pagebackers
with Chris co Klanis, where she's sort of staring into
space as if she'd rather be anywhere, but there was
matched with the Irritating Gentleman by Bert Old Waltz. We'll
link to all those. And then one of my all
time favorites is the Michael Jordan Si cover over the
(35:38):
Blue and you actually sent me a canvas of that
pairing which I have in my house, which is awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Clifford, still with you you saying all those it did
remind me actually of my I think favorite favorite post,
which is Kelly O'Hara got like cleated in the side
and then they were all like pointing at it and
that one that was years ago to that one popped.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, we'll link to that one too. It does feel
like there are a fair amount of matches from religious art,
and that kind of feels like a fertile ground because
often somebody's head is lying in somebody else's lap, somebody
is being cradled by Mary or Jesus or someone else,
or there's some sort of massive aggrieved party who has
(36:21):
been stabbed, cleated or otherwise. So there's a lot there
that you seem to get.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Sports is a religion, so for some people.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
The research shows that for many people it is as
much a part of their identity as their religion. It's
why we say we instead of they. We truly believe
it's a part of us. And for folks like you
and I who are Chicago Bears and New York Giants fans,
that doesn't always work out great for identities. What's the
most excited you've been to hear from the subject of
(36:54):
one of your posts.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
I always get pumped when I see like a like,
like a comment from an athlete that's featured, especially when
they're like, what is this? I think Andre Drummond NBA
players slid into the d MS and was like, can
you make me one nice? Which was funny.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I was gonna ask if you take requests.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
If I guess, if you know a professional athlete is
reaching out, I'll spend a little bit of time, But
I don't know. It's honestly, the best requests are the
best comments come from like people saying I like sports
and my partner likes art, and this is the only
thing that we can talk about, or you know, like
(37:40):
comments from like grandmothers who are like, this is the
only account that I like following other than my family
and those I don't know, those teachers being like I
use this in my curriculum to teach kids. I get
a ton of those, which is great, like teach kids
about art and get them to appreciate art. Definitely a
(38:01):
little bit more on the scale of probably importance than
Andre Drummond, but I did. I did get a chuckle
out of sliding in the DMS.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Well as for a request, I feel like you could
certainly monetize it if people were allowed to. It's sort
of like cameo, except for their sending in their loved
ones in some sort of photo that has become a
joke for the family or the friend group or otherwise noteworthy,
and you flip it into art. You could monetize that.
Just an idea, just.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Something that they could bring the holidays. Oh good commissions.
I just like kind of post about it informally, and
in past years it's just been like pay whatever you want,
and that's been like nice.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, well, the holidays are approaching, so everybody who's listening,
you get your family and friend photos the most embarrassing
you can find. Get them. Ready. Speaking of teachers, Alex
actually shared she did a whole presentation on art but
make it sports Back in the day, Alex tell us
the about this little project quickly.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
Well, I absolutely love knowing that lj's all time favorite
post is the one that I copied. So back in
twenty twenty three, I audited Drawing one oh one at
the University of New Hampshire and our final project was
to copy a famous work of art, and I was like, well,
can I copy a famous work of art being copied
(39:22):
by a famous moment in sports? And so I made
a whole PowerPoint presentation which I'm happy to link to
in the show notes, which include lots of my favorites
at least as of twenty twenty three. And it was
so cool to be in a class with the other
college students and see them engaged.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
With my presentation.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
Like I have to say, I think I got the
most questions of any other student. And people just had
never seen art portrayed in that way, and I think
for them to realize, like, oh, this thing that I
love sports can also be combined with this thing that
I love art was a really rewarding experience for me.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
That's so cool. Yeah, we'll definitely link to that so
people so people can check it out. I have a
couple more questions. You've ever gotten a nasty response based
on one of your matchups from the subject or some
of someone related to.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Them once or twice, not even just just being like
this account is dumb, not even related to the actual
and then like the actual thing that I do, But
I think in terms of if I looked at like
the volume of positive comments compared to like the handful
(40:29):
of negative ones, it's yeah, it's like ninety nine point
ninety nine percent, But I do let the negative ones
get to me. So I got it.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
We all do. It's literally how our brain is wired.
It's so that you know, if we see a snake once,
we remember where it was, so we don't die by it,
as opposed to remembering the flowers we see every time.
Do you ever worry about being offensive culturally or otherwise?
Like do you have to think about whether there's context
to either the art or the photograph that you're missing?
(40:56):
And do you ever not post stuff because you're like,
I just don't know.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I'm getting that right, Yeah, all the time, And a
lot of it is just sort of, I guess, intrinsic
to the process of, you know, coming up with it.
There are times where I'll paying a friend and be like,
talk to me about this, what should I do? Sometimes
they're purposefully offensive and maybe not a offense, it's not
(41:23):
the right word, but like they stir the pot in
a way, but in a way that I'm comfortable with.
There I started to, like because I just started getting
inundated with requests for for you know, political images and
non sports images, so I just spun off a separate
(41:44):
one for those. But those are obviously a lot more
I think if people fired up a.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Little niche, but then also more likely to enrage and
engage exactly. Okay, So now we've like dived into how
your brain works and how you combined sort of like
this visual presentation of like how do people consume sports
in terms of the product jobs that you've had, and
then presentation in terms of storytelling through something, and then
(42:10):
combine that with the art and everything else. Now you're
sort of taking it one step further, even with this
volleyball app that you and your buddies teamed up to make,
where you're critically thinking about how people consume and digest
something and interact with it. So tell us what this is.
This is like a very fascinating offshoot for me based
on the other stuff you've done.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yeah, so like the ARPA maked sports account very much
like a hobby in free time. But yeah, two buddies
of mine that I've worked with in the past sort
of what one is a massive women's college volleyball fan,
and then you know, we sort of looked at the
(42:53):
landscape of women's sports coverage and kind of realize that
there's a piece missing for fans of women's college volleyball
of sort of a getting live scoring and being able
to have a community and place to come together. I
think you had mentioned in the past episode a few
(43:14):
weeks ago of you know, kind of the lack of
a home for women's sports fans when it comes to
you know, being able to get your opinions off and
being able to meet other fans and that sort of
sense of community. I think originally Twitter kind of served
as that space, but as we've seen with that platform,
it you know, every day that goes by, it becomes
(43:36):
less and less of a place you probably want to
be and want to be hanging out. So, yeah, we
we started an app. It hasn't been released yet, but
we have a we have like a beta version that
the three of us are working off of. In the
in the next few weeks, it'll it'll be live. But
we do have a place to sign up, so I'll
shamelessly plug that. It's fanflaresports dot com so f L
(44:00):
A R E and flair for fan Flair sign up,
especially if you're a women's college volleyball fan. You'll get
a notification when the app is live. But we've got
live scores and box scores and then a whole place
to chat in sort of a social media Twitter like experience.
(44:21):
So we're super excited and it's been fun. I haven't
done much on it, frankly, my two buddies have done
the development. But my goals when it's live too, you know,
as you could probably guess them into social media and
sort of building things out there, and excited to kind
of grow that and interact with that community. I love
(44:41):
watching women's college volleyball. I don't know a ton about
it yet, and so I've started learning and it's been
cool the process.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Do you have a general idea of one that might
go live?
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Yeah, thinking like probably mid to end October.
Speaker 4 (44:56):
So cool.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Yeah, a few weeks.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Awesome fan flare like fanfare with an L exactly perfect.
That's so exciting. I love that, and I know we're
going to have some slices some listeners of this show
that I'd be really excited about having a place, and
I get the feeling we might see some Vanderbilt women's
volleyball painting matchups coming in the future now that they've
(45:19):
got a team.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Yeah, volleyball. Volleyball is tough to meme, but you do
get sort of obviously like people flying around in art,
and so you get that in volleyball. Usually want to
like capture the ball too, and that becomes even harder.
But yeah, yeah, pumped for Vandy Volleyball and excited to
(45:44):
have the app go live and cool people in there
and get their feedback.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I'm no expert, but I feel like, beyond the angels
flying and other things in art, you could also look
at the extremely long, skinny levers in volleyball and find
some modern art that's just got like stroked and slashes
and things like that that look like the shapes that
they create. Cool. Well, we're excited for fan Flare and
excited for the book. You have so much going on.
(46:10):
Please don't stop doing all of the free labor of art,
but make it sports just because you have other jobs.
Like I said earlier, it's an antidote to everything else,
so that we need it.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Yeah, I think across the board, it's all stuff that
I'm only doing because I'm passionate about it, and yeah,
really really excited about the community that's kind of rallied
around the account. Mostly thanks to you for getting that
bolt all rolling. And yeah, go to the fan flare
site sign up and then you can download it. And
(46:40):
appreciate you you having me on.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
For sure, Thanks for coming on. Thanks so much to
LJ for joining us and for making the Internet just
a little less shitty with every post. We got to
take another break when we come back. It was all
a dream, but now we got forty inch in seams,
We get juicy next. Welcome back, Slaics. We love that
(47:09):
you're listening, but we want you to get in the
game every day too, So here's our good game play
of the day. It's an easy one. Follow Lj's awesome
accounts on social media. We'll link to him in the
show notes and if you haven't yet, go take a
spin through his posts. I promise you will not be disappointed.
This guy is good. We always love to hear from you,
so hit us up on email good game at wondermedianetwork
dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven
(47:31):
two two oh four fifty seventy and don't forget to
subscribe a rate and review. It's easy watch extra long
Sweats for the Tall Girlies, rating forty out of forty
inches of d seams review. Chicago sky Star Angel Reese
continues to add to her portfolio of endorsements and product lines,
this time joining Juicy Couteur as a global ambassador and
(47:54):
creative collaborator. Reese is not only the face of Viva
La Juicy, She's also a code desig on their new
limited edition Angel Coutour line with tracksuits, T shirts, crop
hoodies and more. And the best part the line includes
long length track pants so the tall girlies can finally
rock that signature bubblegum pink Juicy Velure pant. I want
(48:16):
to pick up some gear. We'll link to the collection
in the show notes. Now it's your turn, rate and review.
Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow for my conversation with
former US Olympic swim team captain and four time Olympian
Alison Schmidt. Good game, LJ. Good game all you creatives
out there. Few anyone who doesn't respect the arts. Life
would be real bland without creative expression. Good Game with
(48:43):
Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership
with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network. Our producers are
Alex Azzi and Nisha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett,
Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rutterer. Our editors are
(49:04):
Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch and Gianna Palmer. Our
associate producer is Lucy Jones. Production assistance from Avery Loftus
and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain
Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're digging
into the archives for picks of me throwing the javelin
to send to today's guest. If he can jext opose
me with Picasso's Guernica or Bochoni's The Charge of the
Lancers or something. I'll brag about it for the rest
of my life. It's Wednesday, October eighth, and on today's show,
we'll be chatting with l J Raider, the man behind
the uber popular Art but Make It Sports social media account.
(00:23):
We discuss what inspired him to start the account, why
it's so important for him to credit photographers, the book
he's releasing next year, and the women's college volleyball app
he's working on, plus the Phoenix Mercury look to make
things interesting. In Game three of the WNBA Finals tonight,
Naviisa Callier gets back on the mic and MNBA Commissioner
Adam Silver enters the chat. It's all coming up right
(00:44):
after this welcome back slices. Here's what you need to
know today. In hoops. Game three of the WNBA Finals
between the Las Vegas Aces and the Phoenix Mercury is tonight.
(01:06):
The Aces currently hold a two zero lead in the
best of seven series, after taking full advantage of playing
on home court in the first two contests. The series
is in Phoenix for tonight's matchup and for Game four.
If the Mark can't take care of business this evening,
we could see a sweep for the Aces on Friday.
You can catch tonight's action tipping off at eight pm
Eastern on ESPN. And if you're playing catch up on
(01:28):
the series, take a listen to our interviews with Cindy
Brunson and Sabrina Merchant from the past couple episodes. They
both did an excellent job breaking things down. We'll link
to those in our show notes. More w and more
on the Kathy Engelbert and a Fisa Collier Saga Collier
spoke about her comments regarding WNBA leadership publicly for the
first time on Monday in a sit down with none
(01:49):
other than former Vice president Kamala Harris. The chat took
place in Los Angeles during an annual one day summit
for activists, change makers, and storytellers called a Day of
Unreasonable Cosation. Here's a bit of what call your head
to say.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I never had planned to do that before you know,
I am on the union for our CB and negotiations,
but at markeating.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Negotiations for our meat.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
And so for so long, I felt like I saw
what was going on.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Behind closed doors.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
For so long, we tried to have these conversations and
move the needle in those meetings that we would have
with the league, you know, within our leadership, and I
saw nothing was changing. You know, coaches winning and losing
a light, were complaining about the same things over and
over again, players over and over again, and.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
We weren't seeing a change that our leadership was trying
to make.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
And I think I just got to the point where
I was fed up. And you know, you talked about
this with me backstage.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It just resonated so much.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's just like whether I was going to get you know,
annihilated for this, or people are.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Going to support me. I felt what I was doing
was right.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I felt like it needed to be said, so no
matter the consequences, I felt like it was something that
needed to be done.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Nothing unreasonable about that. We're now twenty four days out
from the Halloween deadline for collective bargaining agreement negotiations. Will
continue to keep you up to speed on all the
happenings and relevant dialogue around it. Speaking of relevant dialogue,
MNBA Commissioner Adam Silver has entered the chat. He spoke
up on Monday, adding his two cents during a press conference.
(03:17):
He said, in part, quote, there's no question that the
WNBA is going through growing pains, and it's unfortunate that
it's coming just as their most important games and their
finals are on right now. He continued, quote, Kathy Engelbert
has presided over historic growth in the league, but there's
no question that there's issues that we need to address
with our players, not just economic there's relationship issues as well.
(03:39):
I'm confident we can fix those over time and this
league can continue to be on the rocket trajectory that
it's on right now. End quote. Silver also said, quote,
we will get a deal done with the players. Lots
of work left to be done, but will of course
get a new collective bargaining agreement end quote. Silver is
confident a deal will get done, though we didn't put
a timeline on when you remember, Engelbert told press on
(04:02):
Friday that there may need to be an extension if
negotiations don't conclude in time. Silver is responsible for both
hiring and firing the WNBA commissioner, and he's been involved
in CBA negotiations as well as the MNBA is a
parent company of the WNBA. All Right, slices. There is
so much to talk about when it comes to the
ongoing conversation about the WNBA and leadership. So it's time
(04:24):
for another very quick, we promise this time, give me
a minute. Let's start the clock. Alex, I know you,
in particular, had some thoughts about what Adam Silver had
to say.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yeah, I had some thoughts on both Adam's comments as
well as what we have seen from the media in general,
talking especially about mainstream outlets and people that don't necessarily
cover the WNBA all the time, because we have seen
a lot of words.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
Like embarrassing, controversial, shameful getting thrown out in headlines and
on Chiron's And I want to just stop for a second,
because anytime I see those words, I always want to
ask embarrassing for whom, controversial for whom?
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And it was interesting. I had a conversation with a
friend last week who doesn't follow the WNBA at all,
and I was like, yeah, it's been a busy couple days,
and she recoiled almost as if like, yeah, I heard
like it's bad out there, and I was like, wait,
I didn't know that that was going to be her reaction,
because to me, it's not bad out there. I think
that it's this incredible moment of power and claiming worth.
(05:28):
And that's to me what I saw Few's comments as,
and so whenever I see this embarrassing label get thrown out,
I pause a that you know, in Adam Silver's comments,
he said, I think it's unfortunate, particularly at this moment
when as the league, we'd all love the attention to
be on these incredible finals. Okay, it's unfortunate, well, you
know who. It's unfortunate for the league front office. I
(05:49):
don't think it's unfortunate for the players. I think it's
a well timed play by the players to make this
stand when they did. For Fee to make her statement
in her exit interview, it's extremely calculated. So this is
my call to media in general to think about the
words that they use as they are telling this story.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Speaking of words, for those who don't know, a chiron
is the words that are on a TV screen telling
you who someone is, sponting who they are, or telling
you what they're talking about or explaining what the story
might be. So, in case you missed that alexistrapin TV
knowledge on all, y'all, I agree with you for the
most part. I mean, I think I understand a bit
(06:32):
of the recoiling or the response from people outside of
the league to what's going on, because it is very
rare to see a player directly call out a commissioner
and to attribute quotes to that commissioner that I do
find embarrassing. So the word embarrassing is accurate for Kathy
Engelbert and trying to defend the idea that she would
say the players should be on their knees thanking me
(06:52):
that specific language, or the idea that Caitlin Clark should
be grateful because she wouldn't be making buckets of money
without the w These things are embarrassing for someone running
a league. But I get your point, and I do
think there is a sexism at play to some of
the language people are using to discuss this ongoing conversation
between Fee and the rest of the players and WNBA leadership.
(07:15):
It doesn't seem to be treated as much like a
business conflict as it might. I think if it were
an am men's sport. A lot of it is about relationships,
it's personal or even the language of its embarrassing or
uncomfortable or unfortunate, feels like the girls are fighting kind
of as opposed to this is a serious business that
(07:38):
is at a massive inflection point, and this badass, informed, educated,
well spoken, concise, specific, knife edge sharp player just laid
open her own leadership to the point where it feels
(07:59):
like the commission might not get per job anymore. And
in any other space, I think that's talked about in
a business sense and said there is some language that
feels a little bit sexist. Yep, wholeheartedly agree.
Speaker 6 (08:11):
And just to sum it up, please do not point
that big loaded word at an a Fisa Collier, because
nothing she did was embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Everything she did was brave, was courageous, was.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
Exactly what we've come to expect from somebody like herself,
who has not only built up her stature in this league,
but we've seen her kind of come out of her show.
Like I remember when she was at Yukon. I did
not think it was gonna give. I'm gonna put the
commission of WNBA on a spit and roaster in front
of everybody like I did not think that's what it
was gonna give for Fee at all, So do not
(08:43):
point that E word at her, that's all Kathy.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, And I would just love to see the look
on Kathy's face when Fia ends up on stage with
Kamala Harris talking about her commentary on the leadership of
the League talk about E third.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, I was feeling a little bit hurt when Fee
rejected our interview requests for Enjoying number two a couple
of days ago. But you know, if you gotta go
talk to Kamala first, that's fine. We'll be here, though, Fie.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Speaking of this might be a very organic moment to
point out that somebody else we care about is rejecting
us in favor of a high placed political figure.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Hm.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
We didn't necessarily plan this for today, but it feels
a little bit too perfect for me to point out,
Thanks Obama, because we're beloved, Misha is leaving us now.
They have a good reason. They used to work for
Higher Ground, the Obama's production company, and they have been
requested to return. I can only imagine buckets of money
(09:47):
being thrown at them because of their incredible talent, but
Misha's leaving us, and I don't know. Do you want
to say a quick word about how much of a
trader you are?
Speaker 6 (10:00):
I don't envision this ripping is gonna end anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
No, definitely not.
Speaker 6 (10:06):
Goodness, Well, as this was not planned, I do not
have a prepared statement like the Fisa Kaer did.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
It's not for you. Do you have one week to
think about your final words and how many orange puns
you want to include?
Speaker 5 (10:22):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
My goodness.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
What I will say is I am very excited about
what we have been able to do with Good Game.
I'm very sad to be leaving. I'm very sad that
this will not be the environment I'm working moving forward
with these two knuckleheads, you know, making fun of me
for being a child and all the other things that
come with it. But yeah, y'all, I'm headed up out
(10:46):
of here. But thank you to everybody who listens on
a regular or if you don't, if you listen on
a one off, we love you too, and that's fine.
But I'm certainly gonna miss getting out here and chatting
with you all. Given my takes, even when they're half baked,
give them a takes on all things basketball. Because you
know that's my jam, and it just feels fitting that
(11:07):
we're in the WNBA finals while you know I'm making
my final rounds here on Big Games. Thank you so
much for bringing that on me, and we'll give you
another chance to say goodbye before your final day, which
is about a week or so from now.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
But there is going to be one third of Big
Citrus that will no longer be in the grove, which
does mean we are going to be looking for a
new orange to appeel. I don't know where this continued
metaphor is going. This is embarrassing, honestly, and it does
feel like I wasn't even given a chance to negotiate,
(11:45):
like the WNBA CBA Mesh was just like oh Michelle
Obama piece. Can't blame them all. Right, on that note,
we got to take a break more with Mesh leaving
us on another show. But for now, when we come back,
art imitates like my sport is life and sport imitates art.
Try to keep up, y'all. Welcome back slices. Before we
(12:15):
get to my conversation with LJ, a heads up that
we're going to be referencing a bunch of visual stuff,
so we'll link to everything we talk about in the
show notes if you want to pull things up and
reference them while listening. All right, now onto my chat
with LJ joining us now. He's the CMO, the chief
meme officer of the super popular social media account Art
(12:35):
But Make It Sports, and his quote unquote real job
is the head of broadcast products at Sports Radar. A
Vanderbilt grad, he studied human and organizational development, not art,
but somehow he knows exactly which Picasso statue mirror Sabrina
Gescu in the tunnel, and just which Claude Monet piece
to pair with Taylor Swift looking out a frozen window
at a Chief's game. Producer Alex has been his biggest
(12:55):
fan since meeting him at the twenty twenty one NWSL Championship,
and once she even convinced to drawing teacher to let
her copy in art but sports post aka art but
make it Sports but make it Art again. His memes
are famous, but the man is a mystery. Until now
it's LJ Raider. Hi, LJ, thanks for coming on, Sarah,
thanks for having me. We're going to get to the
book that you're writing and a volleyball project that you're
(13:18):
working on. But first I want to set the stage
for folks who are not super fans, like this show
is of art, but make it sports. And I want
to start with your background. I assumed like art history
major or something, but no, So where does this love
and appreciation of art come from?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, so, first off, thanks for having me on. Super
excited to be here. I think you were one of
the first people in sports media to take notice, maybe
because I was bugging you to check out the account.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
But it was so good it did not feel like
a chore to support.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Crazy to think how far, how far it's kind of
come and grown. But yeah, I actually come from the
sports side, which I think is surprises people across all
of sports. And you know, I'll watch anything that's that's
on TV if it, you know, has a competitive angle
against it. The art comes from I think my grandparents.
(14:14):
They they were appreciators of art. My grandfather owned a
garage in the village and there were a bunch of
artists that were had spots there and could never pay,
and they would always trade their art. And so whenever
I'd visit my grandparents' house, they had a pretty eclectic
collection and a handful of those artists, you know, ended
(14:34):
up becoming famous and sort of just always surrounded by
art and always interested, but only took one class in
college and ended up just kind of teaching myself a
bunch on the side.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
That's cool. So the sports side, where'd you grow up
and how did that result in? Which teams excite and
haunt you as a result.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, so I'm from from New York, about an hour
outside of the city. So I'm let's see, I'm a Yankees,
Liberty Knicks, guest Giants fan, but last ten years hasn't
really been relevant. And then all things Vanderbilt sports. So
(15:14):
we have a new women's volleyball team, which is exciting.
The football team is good this year. We've always been
good in soccer, so I try to follow the Predators
for hockey, but they also haven't been all too good recently.
And then just kind of anything that's on I'm a
fan of. It's less about kind of the teams I
(15:36):
support and just being able to consume sports.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, you reminded me that I meant to shout out
Vanderbilt bringing back volleyball when the season started, and it
completely slipped my mind with everything else going on, but
here it is shout out Vanderbilt for bringing back women's volleyball.
Very cool. I think I was actually in Africa when
they did the big game like to welcome it back
and the exciting kind of event around it.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
All right.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I checked out your LinkedIn. Most of your jobs have
been sort of related to sports, but almost all include products.
You product in the title. This includes your current role
as head of broadcast products, but you've also been a
product manager, product specialist. And I'm mostly unfamiliar with real careers.
I have a made up job. I pretty much always have,
(16:19):
so I do not know what these jobs are. What
does it mean to constantly be around products? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:26):
So I've always been fascinated by obviously sports, so it
happens on the fields and courts, but also how people
consume sports, and how are they able to watch it,
how are they able to stream it? What is it
that they can learn about it from an editorial perspective,
and then what are the sort of pipelines and foundations
(16:49):
that need to be in place to support somebody's fandom.
Always been drawn to that and decided to make a
career out of that, so originally starting the editor side,
so worked at a Rhodo World as a writer and
that was within the NBC Sports family. It was a
producer on the Olympics, so doing some long form short
(17:14):
form on the athletes in the combat sports, so boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo,
and wrestling, So getting to know their stories and being
able to go to, you know, pre Olympic events that
they were doing trainings for and being able to kind
of translate their dreams and ambitions into something that the
(17:36):
public could consume from an editorial perspective. And then was
working still within NBC Sports, but then moved to a
role on their live streaming app. From there, worked at
DraftKings early on again on the product side, and then
I've been at my current role for I think eight
(17:59):
years now. I think no matter what I did in
the sports world, kind of realized that at the foundation
you need data to power things. So the company I
work for now is a data company and helps unlock
sports experiences for different folks. And then my focus is
on the broadcast space. So all of this to say,
(18:22):
you know, how do you kind of empower storytelling and
help fans watch what they want to watch.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
So you're working at sports radar what happens that inspires
the start of art, but make it sports and do
you remember the first pairing?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Yeah, So it's always been just kind of a hobby
of mine, or like a framework of mine to whether
it be an art museum or kind of anything and
see it in a sports lens. So when I first
started out, it was just on my personal Instagram being
able to post images from a museum and then just
giving it, you know, stupid sports captions. And then over time,
(19:00):
I'm I had friends tell me that, you know, you
should make this its own thing, so started its own
Instagram account. And at the very beginning it was just
kind of like literally putting captions on top of the artwork.
And then I found myself time after time the captions
being something like this looks like this thing, and then
it kind of clicked it, okay, like when I just
(19:20):
put the thing next to the thing it looks like
and that's when I kind of kind of took off.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So I love that. So you didn't really have much
of a goal early on. It was just kind of
amusing yourself and then your friends told you to make
an account. Were you surprised when anybody else seemed to
take notice, because it does feel like you did actively
look for some folks to take notice like me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah, So I still don't think I have a goal
with the account other than to amuse myself. It is
fun to watch it grow and watch the community grow,
But at the end of the day, I think, from
like a content perspective, I think I knew that it
would be like it would resonate with people, just because
(20:02):
I guess one of the things I pride myself on
is having my finger on the pulse of sort of
what sports fans are looking for and like what makes
good content. When I worked at Rhoda World, they had
a pretty high editorial bar, and that kind of got
instilled in me in terms of, you know, I could
(20:22):
make a hundred posts, but probably focusing on the five
to ten that are actually really really high quality, and
you know, sort of always assessing what I'm putting out
there and making sure maybe it towes the line, but
it isn't going to go over the line. And so
I knew that the content itself was gonna eventually take off.
(20:42):
But I still only really do it to keep myself
sharp and to have fun and to kind of just
contribute in my little corner of the Internet, to which
I wish it was like there were more accounts like mine,
And I feel like the Internet is now just kind
of overrun by slop and people feeling stuff from other
people and not great. So that's kind of demoralizing. But
(21:08):
maybe that helps me, I guess, keep the account around
for even longer, just knowing that it becomes rare and
rare for.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, it's a bit of an antidote to the rest
of what's going on. Do you remember which of the
early posts was the first to really blow up where
we were like, oh my god, people are seeing this.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I don't know if there was one in particular it was.
I think when you, honestly when you posted about the account,
I think it jumped from like one hundred people that
followed to a thousand. Oh nice, Oh my god, there
are a thousand people, which was cool. So yeah, things
definitely went viral on Twitter a lot over the course
of the first few years, So go up and like
(21:48):
kind of plateau.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Yeah again. You know, you always seem to have women's
sports on your radar, posting about them along with men's sports,
and obviously for many of us that seems obvious, and
there's way more if you include both. But for a
whole lot of folks, women exist in the sports world
only as like cheerleaders, moms, or wags. So it's sadly
actually noteworthy that you do that, And it's kind of
(22:09):
like the Bechdel test except for sexism, and sports media
producer Alex actually calls it the scroll test. For her,
if you go to the front page of a sports
news media website, how far do you have to scroll
until you actually get to a story or a post
about women's sports. And you know, even back when it
was literal newspapers where there was a fold, women's sports
would usually be buried below the fold. But you've always
(22:30):
featured them prominently. So I wonder if this was a
conscious decision or you've always just naturally included them while
watching and thinking about.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Sports, always naturally included while watching and thinking about sports.
I think one of the things I'm proud of is that, like,
the account is now kind of part of the zeitgeist
and sort of culture, and I don't think I've ever
seen a comment come through on you know, whether Instagram
or Twitter, being like, why are you posting this a
(23:00):
women's sports event, and I think the community that I've
grown they sort of see the world the same way
that I do, and that sports are sports and it
doesn't matter who's playing it. But I am I'm definitely
proud of the fact that, like I don't know, the
community trust me to post whatever I think is I
deem worthy of posting, And to me, I think of
(23:22):
anything that's whether it's men's women's sports, regardless of what
sport it is, that's worth kind of putting out there.
I have a hard time now because of I guess
how much demand there is for people sending photos and
tagging me and things to kind of keep up with stuff.
It is helpful to get imagery from people as opposed
(23:44):
to me having to go and scour and find it.
So in that sense, I wish I could be doing
a lot more just across the board. But I've never
really thought about, you know, the kind of ratio between
men's and women's sports. Now I am so I wrote
a book which is fun and in that I kind
(24:04):
of deliberately spend time not just thinking about kind of
the number of men's and women's sports that are posted
in there, but just making sure just representation across the board,
whether it's you know, female artists and you know artists
from underrepresented communities and times, just because that is also
a part of art history and so definitely made like
(24:28):
conscious decisions there in that. But on the on the
day to day just whatever I see that's you know, artistic,
I'll throw out.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah. So the book's called the Art but make it
sports epic matchups where art and sports collide. It'll be
released in March of twenty twenty six. How much writing
is there in it? Like, do you tell the story
of some of the artists or the sports moments or
is it more like the visuals?
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Each page has releast some texts, some
more than others. I I wrote everything myself. I didn't
use any AI. I don't know how good the writing
actually is. There's some old posts in there that I
feature a kind of just talk my talk through my
process and things that you know, people might have missed
(25:14):
because there aren't necessarily just visual connections. There's some new
ones in there. It was fun to be able to
tackle some more historic photos because yeah, nowadays it's just
I'm posting mostly live stuff. And I don't have time
to go back and reference old stuff, so the book
gives that a lot of a lot of real estate.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Amazing. Do you have to worry about copyright infringement? Do
you have to get the rights to each piece of
art and photo you're using?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Yeah, so the art works pretty straightforward. I only used
art that was part of the public domain. You can
get rights to newer art, but it's very expensive, just
not from like a legal perspective and having a not
an area that I wanted to poke. So so on
(25:59):
that front, very straightforward. And then on the sports imagery side,
I worked with Getty and then a few other folks
that specialize in licensing sports images, and they made it
super easy, and frankly, I think they understood the project
and what I was trying. You'd say they were super helpful.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, I mean you talked about how the internet is
full of people stealing content, passing things off as their own,
Like you've long made sure on every post of yours
that you credit the photographer who took the photo. And actually,
for a lot of fans, they can actually kind of
figure out what you might be working on next because
they see you replied to a team or a league
asking who took this photograph so you can make sure
to give credit. Why are you so committed to giving credit?
(26:41):
Why is it something that you seem to know from
the beginning was important to what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
When I worked at roode A World right, they kept
a very high editorial bar, and what you would do
with the blurbs is a piece of news would break
and you would give that piece of news and then
you'd give your opinion on it. And every time that
you posted, you needed to make sure that you you
sourced your news. You couldn't just say you know, this
thing happened without saying who said it happened and where
(27:06):
it came from. Uh So I think I had that
I had that foundation sort of in me of you know,
you you have to credit where where something comes from.
I also think that the the point, the whole point
of the account is to not just highlight art, but
highlight sports photography. When I use sports photographs and there
(27:29):
are super creative people that work really hard to capture
those photographs, and I see them just as much as
artists as the you know, fine art artists that I reference.
So just like wouldn't I don't know, wouldn't feel right
to just use an image without knowing where it came
from and who took it. So yeah, I think I
(27:51):
guess it's become a little bit of like a tag
on Twitter. It is a little frustrating that, uh, you know,
these these schools and Team Stone some do, but on
the whole they kind of just post the image. I
know they have the rights to do that, but having
to chase attribution is it takes a lot of time.
(28:12):
But I'd also like it's just become I think a
big in the sports photography community that where if I
if I posted an image and didn't say where it
came from and I was the person that took the image,
I'd be pretty pissed.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah yeah, I mean I love the idea of the
book being an opportunity for people to be exposed to
art in a way that might be a little bit
of a bridge if they're not going to museums a
lot or not opening up books of art history. And
I know, for me, like I found I learned a
lot of really curious and quirky and interesting stuff from
watching like Hannah Gadsby do stand up, where she was
an art history person, and she was bringing in her
(28:46):
thoughts about historical artists and their work and you know
some of the ways that we actually view them and
don't even really critically think about what we're looking at.
One of my favorite sections is where she's like, why
are women always just standing around with like one tit out,
like this is not a thing that women do in life,
and yet somehow every piece of art is just like
ladies standing around a garden with half their dress falling off,
(29:08):
and like, sometimes you just need to see it differently.
And one of the cool things about your work. And
you went on Pablo Torre's podcast, Pabulatory Finds Out and
they kind of tested you to make sure that you're
not just dropping things into AI and you say, there
is no use of AI at all. It's coming off
the dome. But that comes from you understanding artists a
lot of the time to say, this person looks like
(29:29):
the kind of figure you would see in Rubin, This
looks like the kind of strange, weird thing that might
come up in a Picasso statue. Like you're using that knowledge,
and I feel like people reading the book might start
to see trends or understand art a little better by
virtue of using those same tricks and tips that are
living in your brain. Do you work on that to
(29:54):
stay sharp to make your matches. Do you read about
different artists and their trends or is it all sort
of like a visual learning for you?
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Yeah, majority is visual, but I definitely do a ton
of reading, and I like to understand like who an
artist contemporaries are or were to be. Like, Okay, if
you know this artist maybe puts a slightly different spin
on on what this other artist does. Just a ton
of consuming, whether it's you know, reading books or Wikipedia
(30:23):
or going to museums. I just I don't know. I
just love I love art and fine art, And yeah,
I think you're like the idea of like an artist's
style and being able to, like I can see a
sports image and then maybe not know the exact painting,
but know the style that matches. I also think it's
(30:44):
a fun parallel because I do think there's like distinctions
in the sports world too, of you know, athletes that
have unique styles that you could start to recognize. I know,
I see on on Twitter there's sometimes like viral videos
of basketball players that are like blacked out as they're
shadow and then shows the clip and people have to
guess who the employer is. And you can get it
(31:04):
because you can understand the style and the movement. And
so when people will talk about how like art and
sports are, you know, you're sort of taught growing up
these you're a jock or you're a you know, an
art kid, and very like much opposed. But when you
actually spend time together with them, you kind of realize
they're the same thing. Their their motion, they're you know,
artists practice, athletes practice, they develop styles, and I think
(31:29):
you know, the account resonates because you can kind of
just you can see it.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
So, yeah, do you know offhand a couple of your
posts that have the most likes of all time are
the ones that have gotten the biggest.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah, it's always the ones that are just like low brow,
how rewarding. Right, NBA Finals, there have been a bunch
of the blown up. It's usually times when people are
all on their second screen experience. So like the share
the shared experience of watching a big, big game. Olympics,
(32:05):
tons of Olympics ones blew up. That's that's that's a
ton of fun for me, Like all the like Simone
Biles posts just when like everybody's tuning in it at once.
But yeah, it's like the lowbrow ones do well, and
then the like abstract ones tend to do well if
they're good, just because I think you can really mess
(32:27):
with somebody's head if you can get them convinced that,
like this sports image looks like this abstract painting.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
So do you have a few all time favorites just
personal favorites.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I just think about the the Olympics. There's there was
the one other guy on his surfboard and he's like
riding awave and his pants fell down, so his asses out,
And that's I did to Bosh's Garden of Earthly Delights,
which is like a massive painting, tons of figures and
there's like this guy riding a fish in it with
(32:58):
his ass down. That's one I'm trying to think like
I like doing. Joan Mitchell is one of my favorite artists,
and she always comes up with hockey just because you've
got like lots of condensed bodies of colors and they're
sort of wispy, and I just get excited when I
see something that could fit into her theme. I'm trying
(33:23):
to think of like favorite favorite posts. I don't know,
it's it's cliche, but it's kind of like the next
one because sort of like an addiction to make them,
and which is also why I always find it funny
when people say that I'm I'm using AI and it's like, no, like,
the the dopamine hit that I receive from coming up
(33:43):
with the match is what I am chasing, chasing anything else,
nothing else matters. So yeah, it's like whenever I see
a fun sports image and like can come up with something,
it's like, all right, that that made me happy.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
But yeah, there's a couple of favorites I'm in a
shout out and we'll link to these in the show
notes so y'all can click to them. Very recently, Sid
Colson post surgery was matched with Woman on her Deathbed
by Elizabeth Walker. That was a great one, and you
know Sid's got a sense of humor, so she loved
that one. I'm sure Paigebackers and Hayley Jones watching their
(34:19):
coach Chris coklanis drop a play was paired with the
mother and sister of the artist Berth Morisot. Is that
how you say that?
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Because I don't have actual art history experience. I don't
have pronounced names because I've never actually said them.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I've just yes, they're all just written. Yeah. Well, I'm
sure someone will call in and tell us if we're
getting it wrong. That's pretty much guaranteed. The Trinity Rodman
Pink Hair Flip, which was just an outstanding photograph, so
I really should be shouting out the photographer too. But
you paired that with an untitled piece by Hilma f Clint,
(34:56):
which was amazing, the Rose lavel yelling. It was like
an Edgar Degas called Singer with a Glove, which is
just great because Rose just kind of looks like a
Victorian era woman at all times, and that in particular
she had this very dated Degas sort of glossy, vague
look about her somehow even though the photo was in focus.
(35:18):
That was a great one. And then yet another Pagebackers
with Chris co Klanis, where she's sort of staring into
space as if she'd rather be anywhere, but there was
matched with the Irritating Gentleman by Bert Old Waltz. We'll
link to all those. And then one of my all
time favorites is the Michael Jordan Si cover over the
(35:38):
Blue and you actually sent me a canvas of that
pairing which I have in my house, which is awesome.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Clifford, still with you you saying all those it did
remind me actually of my I think favorite favorite post,
which is Kelly O'Hara got like cleated in the side
and then they were all like pointing at it and
that one that was years ago to that one popped.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, we'll link to that one too. It does feel
like there are a fair amount of matches from religious art,
and that kind of feels like a fertile ground because
often somebody's head is lying in somebody else's lap, somebody
is being cradled by Mary or Jesus or someone else,
or there's some sort of massive aggrieved party who has
(36:21):
been stabbed, cleated or otherwise. So there's a lot there
that you seem to get.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Sports is a religion, so for some people.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
The research shows that for many people it is as
much a part of their identity as their religion. It's
why we say we instead of they. We truly believe
it's a part of us. And for folks like you
and I who are Chicago Bears and New York Giants fans,
that doesn't always work out great for identities. What's the
most excited you've been to hear from the subject of
(36:54):
one of your posts.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
I always get pumped when I see like a like,
like a comment from an athlete that's featured, especially when
they're like, what is this? I think Andre Drummond NBA
players slid into the d MS and was like, can
you make me one nice? Which was funny.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I was gonna ask if you take requests.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
If I guess, if you know a professional athlete is
reaching out, I'll spend a little bit of time, But
I don't know. It's honestly, the best requests are the
best comments come from like people saying I like sports
and my partner likes art, and this is the only
thing that we can talk about, or you know, like
(37:40):
comments from like grandmothers who are like, this is the
only account that I like following other than my family
and those I don't know, those teachers being like I
use this in my curriculum to teach kids. I get
a ton of those, which is great, like teach kids
about art and get them to appreciate art. Definitely a
(38:01):
little bit more on the scale of probably importance than
Andre Drummond, but I did. I did get a chuckle
out of sliding in the DMS.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Well as for a request, I feel like you could
certainly monetize it if people were allowed to. It's sort
of like cameo, except for their sending in their loved
ones in some sort of photo that has become a
joke for the family or the friend group or otherwise noteworthy,
and you flip it into art. You could monetize that.
Just an idea, just.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Something that they could bring the holidays. Oh good commissions.
I just like kind of post about it informally, and
in past years it's just been like pay whatever you want,
and that's been like nice.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Yeah, well, the holidays are approaching, so everybody who's listening,
you get your family and friend photos the most embarrassing
you can find. Get them. Ready. Speaking of teachers, Alex
actually shared she did a whole presentation on art but
make it sports Back in the day, Alex tell us
the about this little project quickly.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
Well, I absolutely love knowing that lj's all time favorite
post is the one that I copied. So back in
twenty twenty three, I audited Drawing one oh one at
the University of New Hampshire and our final project was
to copy a famous work of art, and I was like, well,
can I copy a famous work of art being copied
(39:22):
by a famous moment in sports? And so I made
a whole PowerPoint presentation which I'm happy to link to
in the show notes, which include lots of my favorites
at least as of twenty twenty three. And it was
so cool to be in a class with the other
college students and see them engaged.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
With my presentation.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
Like I have to say, I think I got the
most questions of any other student. And people just had
never seen art portrayed in that way, and I think
for them to realize, like, oh, this thing that I
love sports can also be combined with this thing that
I love art was a really rewarding experience for me.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
That's so cool. Yeah, we'll definitely link to that so
people so people can check it out. I have a
couple more questions. You've ever gotten a nasty response based
on one of your matchups from the subject or some
of someone related to.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Them once or twice, not even just just being like
this account is dumb, not even related to the actual
and then like the actual thing that I do, But
I think in terms of if I looked at like
the volume of positive comments compared to like the handful
(40:29):
of negative ones, it's yeah, it's like ninety nine point
ninety nine percent, But I do let the negative ones
get to me. So I got it.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
We all do. It's literally how our brain is wired.
It's so that you know, if we see a snake once,
we remember where it was, so we don't die by it,
as opposed to remembering the flowers we see every time.
Do you ever worry about being offensive culturally or otherwise?
Like do you have to think about whether there's context
to either the art or the photograph that you're missing?
(40:56):
And do you ever not post stuff because you're like,
I just don't know.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I'm getting that right, Yeah, all the time, And a
lot of it is just sort of, I guess, intrinsic
to the process of, you know, coming up with it.
There are times where I'll paying a friend and be like,
talk to me about this, what should I do? Sometimes
they're purposefully offensive and maybe not a offense, it's not
(41:23):
the right word, but like they stir the pot in
a way, but in a way that I'm comfortable with.
There I started to, like because I just started getting
inundated with requests for for you know, political images and
non sports images, so I just spun off a separate
(41:44):
one for those. But those are obviously a lot more
I think if people fired up a.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Little niche, but then also more likely to enrage and
engage exactly. Okay, So now we've like dived into how
your brain works and how you combined sort of like
this visual presentation of like how do people consume sports
in terms of the product jobs that you've had, and
then presentation in terms of storytelling through something, and then
(42:10):
combine that with the art and everything else. Now you're
sort of taking it one step further, even with this
volleyball app that you and your buddies teamed up to make,
where you're critically thinking about how people consume and digest
something and interact with it. So tell us what this is.
This is like a very fascinating offshoot for me based
on the other stuff you've done.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yeah, so like the ARPA maked sports account very much
like a hobby in free time. But yeah, two buddies
of mine that I've worked with in the past sort
of what one is a massive women's college volleyball fan,
and then you know, we sort of looked at the
(42:53):
landscape of women's sports coverage and kind of realize that
there's a piece missing for fans of women's college volleyball
of sort of a getting live scoring and being able
to have a community and place to come together. I
think you had mentioned in the past episode a few
(43:14):
weeks ago of you know, kind of the lack of
a home for women's sports fans when it comes to
you know, being able to get your opinions off and
being able to meet other fans and that sort of
sense of community. I think originally Twitter kind of served
as that space, but as we've seen with that platform,
it you know, every day that goes by, it becomes
(43:36):
less and less of a place you probably want to
be and want to be hanging out. So, yeah, we
we started an app. It hasn't been released yet, but
we have a we have like a beta version that
the three of us are working off of. In the
in the next few weeks, it'll it'll be live. But
we do have a place to sign up, so I'll
shamelessly plug that. It's fanflaresports dot com so f L
(44:00):
A R E and flair for fan Flair sign up,
especially if you're a women's college volleyball fan. You'll get
a notification when the app is live. But we've got
live scores and box scores and then a whole place
to chat in sort of a social media Twitter like experience.
(44:21):
So we're super excited and it's been fun. I haven't
done much on it, frankly, my two buddies have done
the development. But my goals when it's live too, you know,
as you could probably guess them into social media and
sort of building things out there, and excited to kind
of grow that and interact with that community. I love
(44:41):
watching women's college volleyball. I don't know a ton about
it yet, and so I've started learning and it's been
cool the process.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Do you have a general idea of one that might
go live?
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Yeah, thinking like probably mid to end October.
Speaker 4 (44:56):
So cool.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Yeah, a few weeks.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Awesome fan flare like fanfare with an L exactly perfect.
That's so exciting. I love that, and I know we're
going to have some slices some listeners of this show
that I'd be really excited about having a place, and
I get the feeling we might see some Vanderbilt women's
volleyball painting matchups coming in the future now that they've
(45:19):
got a team.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Yeah, volleyball. Volleyball is tough to meme, but you do
get sort of obviously like people flying around in art,
and so you get that in volleyball. Usually want to
like capture the ball too, and that becomes even harder.
But yeah, yeah, pumped for Vandy Volleyball and excited to
(45:44):
have the app go live and cool people in there
and get their feedback.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I'm no expert, but I feel like, beyond the angels
flying and other things in art, you could also look
at the extremely long, skinny levers in volleyball and find
some modern art that's just got like stroked and slashes
and things like that that look like the shapes that
they create. Cool. Well, we're excited for fan Flare and
excited for the book. You have so much going on.
(46:10):
Please don't stop doing all of the free labor of art,
but make it sports just because you have other jobs.
Like I said earlier, it's an antidote to everything else,
so that we need it.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Yeah, I think across the board, it's all stuff that
I'm only doing because I'm passionate about it, and yeah,
really really excited about the community that's kind of rallied
around the account. Mostly thanks to you for getting that
bolt all rolling. And yeah, go to the fan flare
site sign up and then you can download it. And
(46:40):
appreciate you you having me on.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
For sure, Thanks for coming on. Thanks so much to
LJ for joining us and for making the Internet just
a little less shitty with every post. We got to
take another break when we come back. It was all
a dream, but now we got forty inch in seams,
We get juicy next. Welcome back, Slaics. We love that
(47:09):
you're listening, but we want you to get in the
game every day too, So here's our good game play
of the day. It's an easy one. Follow Lj's awesome
accounts on social media. We'll link to him in the
show notes and if you haven't yet, go take a
spin through his posts. I promise you will not be disappointed.
This guy is good. We always love to hear from you,
so hit us up on email good game at wondermedianetwork
dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven
(47:31):
two two oh four fifty seventy and don't forget to
subscribe a rate and review. It's easy watch extra long
Sweats for the Tall Girlies, rating forty out of forty
inches of d seams review. Chicago sky Star Angel Reese
continues to add to her portfolio of endorsements and product lines,
this time joining Juicy Couteur as a global ambassador and
(47:54):
creative collaborator. Reese is not only the face of Viva
La Juicy, She's also a code desig on their new
limited edition Angel Coutour line with tracksuits, T shirts, crop
hoodies and more. And the best part the line includes
long length track pants so the tall girlies can finally
rock that signature bubblegum pink Juicy Velure pant. I want
(48:16):
to pick up some gear. We'll link to the collection
in the show notes. Now it's your turn, rate and review.
Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow for my conversation with
former US Olympic swim team captain and four time Olympian
Alison Schmidt. Good game, LJ. Good game all you creatives
out there. Few anyone who doesn't respect the arts. Life
would be real bland without creative expression. Good Game with
(48:43):
Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership
with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network. Our producers are
Alex Azzi and Nisha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett,
Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rutterer. Our editors are
(49:04):
Emily Rutterer, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch and Gianna Palmer. Our
associate producer is Lucy Jones. Production assistance from Avery Loftus
and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain
Host
Sarah Spain
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