February 6, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly sit with entrepreneur Josh Richards to discuss his social media empire. Richards explains how he cracked the algorithm to make a name for himself on TikTok, what he’s learned from his partnerships with Dave Portnoy and Mark Wahlberg and why sports teams and star athletes should follow his lead in creating content that can meet target demographics where they are.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Jason Kelly. I'm Alex Rodriguez, and welcome to
the deal. Coming up today, Josh Richards. Alex, you're pretty influential.
I would argue this guy is more influential millions and
millions of followers on social media. He's going to talk
to us all about how to build an audience.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It's incredible.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
I mean you talk about not only is he more influential,
he's probably like seven eight times more.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
This is how the new stars are going to look like.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
And I would not be surprised if NFL and will
be based ball NBA hires someone like Josh to help
them understand what the audience wants.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
He knows it as well as anyone.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
He's been incredibly aggressive as an entrepreneur and as a partner.
He's partnered with Dave Portnoy, He's partner with Mark Wahlberg. He,
like you, has gone out and found incredible mentors. He's
going to tell us how he is building an empire.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Can't wait?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
All right, coming up, Josh Richards. All right, so introduce
yourself and tell us what you do.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Yeah, my name is Josh Richards. And I do social media,
and I'm also an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That undersells it, grossly undersells it. You're highly influential, you know.
We like to talk about signature deals on this show.
A lot of people know you through your Barstool podcast.
Let's start there, because that is a deal that, at
least for a lot of us, kind of comes out
(01:42):
of nowhere. I think we have a little bit of
knowledge of the backstory. You got to share that with us.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Yeah, yeah, So that really started when I had made
a disc track on past friend of mine on social media,
so we were just playing fun, made this song and
it accumulated like one hundred million streams across platforms. Blew
up was treading on Twitter, and that was the first
time Dave Portnoy had seen TikTokers on social media. So
(02:10):
he tweets out and he goes, why these wiggled showing
up on my feet and so instantly, being a fan
of Dave previously, like growing up watching his content and
watching Barstool, I was like, Okay, I got to get
into contact with this guy, like I know he'll like
keep going with it if like I can get him
on a live or do something so we end up
getting in contact with him. We go live on Instagram.
We end up having I want to say, ninety to
(02:32):
one hundred thousand concurrens watching this stream of me and
Dave because just like you guys said, it's like this
is out of nowhere. Why is Josh Richards and Dave
Portnoy making content together? And we did that live. I
explained all the drama to him, and me and him
were going back and forth, cracking jokes. We were charismatic,
we were able to flow with each other. We were
able to go back and forth. And we started getting
hit up by different companies about putting on a show,
(02:54):
and Snapchat was one that reached out and they were like, oh,
would you and Dave want to do like a segmented
show every single week? So I get on a call
with Dave.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
We have.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
An hour call scheduled. I believe we're about two minutes
into this call, and I've pitched on, oh, Snapchat wants
to do show, and he's like, all right, I don't
want to do a show with Snapchat. We're like, okay, well,
we got fifty eight minutes left here. And the whole
pitch of this call is already toast, right, so we
kind of start just spitballing random ideas and we're like,
all right. I had a show at the time called
Tea Talk where on my YouTube I would go through
(03:24):
all the drama that was online and I'd kind of
like poke light at it and make fun of it.
So I thought, why not just kind of take what
we did with the live stream and combine that with
the Tea Talk, and let's just make a podcast where
we talk about all the drama going on in gen
z and social media and I'll explain it to you.
It'll be this really cool co viewing opportunity where kids
can watch with their parents. Right, kids are always trying
to explain what's going on social media their parents. Their
(03:45):
parents aren't quite getting it. They get to watch Dave
and be like, I relate to that guy, and then
people that are my age and younger you get to
watch me and Brie and be like, oh, well, I
relate to them. So it created this really cool experience
and it made a lot of people say like, what,
why are these two together? And I think that's a
reaction that myself and my company have really looked at
(04:05):
as that means you're doing something right when people are
asking why, when people are starting to get intrigued. I
mean that means you're on the forefront of something really special.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I think so and you and Brie remind us who
Brie is? How you guys got together?
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Yes, so Breed Chicken Fry. She is the other host
of the podcast, and we had come across her. She
was already an employee at Barstool. She had been doing
her own podcast, and we had felt like me and
Dave had a good dynamic, but there was something missing.
We needed another point of view. We needed someone else.
I was gonna kind of bringing an imposing side because
a lot of times me and Dave would agree with
(04:38):
each other. So we cycled through a couple of the
people at Barstool, trying out different talent, seeing who would
work out, and when Breed came on, it just fit.
I think having that female perspective is huge, especially because
a lot of my audience is female. I think having
someone that was quick and witty and was able to,
you know, hang with us at the same time. She
was really the perfect fit. And I think that's what
truly made BFFs a really, really good show, is having
(05:02):
all of us four years in.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
That's amazing four years in. Yeah. Did you say her
name is Breed Chicken Fry.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
Yeah, so it's great man. Yeah, she had liked the
chicken fry snacks, so she had called her usally Breonna
Chicken Fry. And it's kind of just there you go. Yeah,
it stuck, all right.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So let's go back even further because before you get
to BFFs, as you mentioned, you're creating highly successful YouTube channel,
you're also building an empire from a pretty early age.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Why.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Yeah, Yeah, I've said this a little bit before, but
I've been touched on a lot. Ever since I was
really young. I had always had this like calling or
feeling where I was like, I know the name Josh
Richards will be known, and I used to pray about
it before I would go to bed every single night.
And you know, when I was three or four, I
thought I was going to be a superhero. I thought
I was gonna be Ben ten Right. That same notion
of like the name Josh Richers will we know never
(05:53):
left me. Went from that to being oh, I'm gonna
be a pro hockey player. I'm gonna be an NHL player,
and then oh, I'm going to be a professional across
player and then oh, I'm going to use my love
for hockey and create a hockey shirt company and I'll
have the biggest apparel brand in hockey and that will
bring my name, Josh Richards around, And it just kind
of kept going and going and going into one day,
my sister had asked me to go in a video
(06:16):
with her on this app called Musically, and so she
has this little like dance rou team we're gonna do
and I was like, okay, cool, let's do this. And
I'm thirteen, I just finished my eighth grade of school
and she's twelve, and so we do this little video
into us. It blows up, running around the house, We're
yelling and screaming. It got like fifty likes, I think,
(06:36):
but to us that was viue. We were like, oh
my goodness, we don't even know fifty people. So we
go and I look at the comments and there's like
two or three of the comments that are like, hey,
what's his username? And they're from girls, and I'm like
kind of feeling myself now, I'm like, all right, I
got to make myself one of these accounts. So I
make one and very quickly kind of go about it
in an entrepreneurial spirit. I had started a couple different
(06:59):
brands in my neighborhood. If that was like a lacrosse
brand where I would string sticks and dye the mesh
and wax coate it so is waterproof and when you
were playing in the rain, your pocket consistency stayed the same.
Or I had a hockey shirt company with different slogans
where we'd go to tournaments. So right away I was like, oh,
is there a way to make money off this? Like
how can I turn this into a business? And so
me and my sister found the live component of the
app where you could go live, and much like Twitch today,
(07:22):
that's like one of the biggest platforms. You'll go live
and people will subscribe or send donos. And not only
were they able to do that on this platform when
I was going live as well, but there was actually
a list that showed you the top two hundred spending
customers every single day, so the people that were donating
the most. So I was sitting there at thirteen, like,
well this is silly, Like why do I need ten
(07:44):
million followers when I can have the top two hundred
spenders every single day, just kind of go direct to consumer.
So I had my sister bring out the iPad. She'd
sit beside me, and I put on our fifteen percent
commission based salary, and she'd sit beside me and she'd
go through that list of two hundred people logged into
my account, follow every single one of them, like fifteen
other videos. They'd get sixteen notifications from a random Josh
(08:06):
Richard's kid. They'd see him live because my profile would
be blinking. They'd be like, oh, all right, let me
go check it out. They'd come into the live. I'd
know it was one of them because their user names
were highlighted and read because I just followed them, so
I would give him actual attention, be like, Yo, what's up.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
What's up.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
They'd end up sending gifts and me and myself would
be like nice, got him. And so then we kept
doing that, and we like did that in my parents'
basement for a year or two years, just starting to
make like really good money and.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
What's real money.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
We were at probably after the first month, we were
doing like six hundred dollars a week. I'm like thirteen
years old, right, So we were sitting there like Wow,
we're we are raking it in. We're set for life,
like we were blown away. And I remember my dad
comes to me one day because all this money is
going from the app, threw his PayPal into my bank account,
so he's getting a notification every time, and you know,
(08:53):
it happens a couple of times. I think it was
probably the third week we're doing it, and he comes
up and he's like, all right, I get it, you're
in high school, but drugs and selling drugs, that's just
not the end. I'm like that, no, no, no, no, that's
not what it is. That's not what it is. So
I have to explain him what social media is and
going live and he's like, all right, I'm not sure
I really understand, but they're making great money, so keep
(09:17):
it up, you know. And so then he started diving
deep into social media. And I always credit my parents
because I wouldn't be here without them. They were my
biggest supporters through everything from the early companies I tried
to do. They would, you know, buy the blank T
shirts and give me one hundred yard mess school for
the cross thing. And then as soon as I started
doing social media, my dad was and mom We're both like,
all right, we need to know everything we can about this.
(09:38):
We need to learn as much as we can. Oh,
I'll take a day off of work, Josh to fly
you to this event in Washington so that you can
go and collab with other creators. And there were all
these little things that you know, they didn't really have
to do, but they were just the most supportive parents
in the world and allowed me to follow the stream
at a young age and go to the United States,
go to different countries when I was younger and should
be in school. Like they believed in me and believed
(10:01):
in what I was doing. So yeah, really really huge props.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So then how soon into that journey are you like, Okay,
I'm in it. This is going to be my life.
I am devoting myself to this. I am following candidly
a pretty well tried path, like I'm moving to LA
like I'm doing it. Like when did it sort of
flip for you?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (10:22):
After two years of being on social media is really
when I think I decided like, no, I can. I
could turn this into something full time. I could really
turn this into a media empire, build companies off of
this and continue to grow and grow in my own
social as well. So after those two years I started
to make some friends in the social media world. We
(10:43):
decided we were going to go on a tour, so
we had gotten altogether, had this person that was repping
the tour and kind of managing it. We did I believe,
thirty cities across the United States, and that was the
moment I think I was first able to see you know,
I come from a small town fifteen thousand and sixteen
(11:03):
thousand people, and everyone already knew me before I did
social media, So there wasn't this like rise to fame
I felt or anything like that in my town. If anything,
it was the opposite, because I was doing something different
and new, right. It was more like, oh, this loser
doing social media. So that was the first time I'd
ever seen faces to these people commenting and liking my content.
And that's really when I was like, holy cow, there's
(11:26):
really something here.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
So we finished the tour. We end up in a
pretty tough situation where us as kids, we hadn't signed anything.
We had kind of done all these handshake deals with
these people running the tour, and we all get screwed
out of a bunch of money. The tour did really
well for them. We were doing like two thousand people,
sold out shows every single place we went. On top
of that, we do dinners and VIP things and all
(11:50):
these different things where people would select to their favorite
fans or their favorite person to see what was So
you were supposed to get that cut and I think
I got seven hundred dollars by the end of it.
Like it was like it didn't even cover the hotels,
you know what I mean, like or the food that
we had to go and get. So it was a
tough situation and it was a learning one that I
you know, I'm glad happened early, because right then I
was like, all right, this is a wild West. Social
(12:12):
media is new. No one's paying attention, like in the
sense of protecting the creator. There's no at this point,
there's no w MECAA. They're not coming to sign kids yet.
They they're not even like looking at what TikTok could be.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And this is only what four or five years ago?
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Yeah, this is twenty nineteen, ye like, so it's not
that long ago, right, And that was the moment where
I was like, Okay, I need to start something that's
going to be by the creator for the creator. So
I started a management company. That's when I moved to
LA That's when me and all my friends start the
Sway House. That's when I get looped in with Chris
Sautel is my business partner now with Crosscheck. He was
at ICM. We had to sign to an agency, our
(12:50):
management company because we didn't have a license so for
them to be repped like we needed that. So we
went and met with ICM. Chris had started the digital
division over there, so that was a person we were
put in contact with and we worked out a deal
with them, started working with them. Chris became also my
manager at the time or my agent, and then as
(13:10):
time moves forward, I ended up leaving Talent X sell
my shares there and that's when I was like, all right,
I want to make a production company. I want to
start being able to bring together the worlds of social
and traditional media, start bridging those as they are getting
closer and closer together. And we all see our favorite
actors and athletes now doing social media, and now we
(13:32):
see social media influencers stepping into music and movies, and
as these worlds are colliding, like, how can I be
at the forefront of that and producing all that content.
So started Crosscheck. Chris was sitting in his comfy job
at ICM, and I was like, why don't you just
listen to me, this nineteen year old kid, and leave
your job and come and work with me, and we'll
(13:53):
start crosscheck together. So after a few months of you know,
continuously knocking on Chris's door and asking him, I convince uh,
and so he listened to me, came over, and then
we started cross Check and we've been doing that for
the last three years now.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
When it comes to like two middle aged dudes like
Jason and I, right, what content can we learn from
you that actually performs the best and which content performs
the worst?
Speaker 5 (14:18):
I mean content that performs the best versus worse. I
think that's very dependent on the creator and all the
person that's creating the content, right, because you already have
a built an audience. You know your audience. You're you've
been from the world of sports. You know anytime you're
gonna be talking about sports, that's gonna play to your audience.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
So I think more about like knowing what content's going
to do bad or knowing what content's going to do good,
It's about knowing your audience because that's gonna lead you
to the right path. So I know, for example, my
audience and my demographic. If I go on my TikTok,
it's gonna be seventy seventy five percent women, twenty twenty
five percent men, right. And I also know that the
(14:57):
age demo there is going to really range from sixteen
to probably twenty four, is really where my age demo sits.
So I go and think, Okay, what are people in
that age group gonna like? What content are this gonna
be fun for them? Okay, what's something relatable that we're
all doing?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
All right?
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Everyone's dating at that age, right, So how do I
bring in a really funny conversation or debate that me
and my girlfriend are going through? And I bring that
to TikTok and we're able to share it. And now
all these kids that are sixteen or twenty four are
sending you to their boyfriends, are sending me to their girlfriends,
and they're like, we literally had the exact same argument.
Oh my god, this is so crazy. My favorite creator
is going That is to me, what builds good content
(15:36):
when you're able to show to your audience that you
know you're going through the same things they're going through.
You're able to play that relatable card with them that
not only is gonna make good content, but continue your
building community.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You know, one of the things you have been so
successful at and you've demonstrated even in the past few minutes,
is identifying and cultivating an audience. So you know you've
talked about sort of the creator side. How do you
essentially make a business out of those insights? Because it
feels like, I mean, if we're looking at your business ventures,
(16:23):
that's your I mean, this is an overuse term, that's
your superpower is understanding the audience. You're clearly an entrepreneur
as well. So how do you build something that leverages
those insights?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Yeah, I mean today every company is trying to find
a way to communicate with gen Z. How can I
help a company by investing or if I really enjoy
this brand and I want to be a part of it,
how can I leverage myself who knows how to communicate
to gen Z, who knows what they're interested in, knows
what they're likes and dislikes are. How can I leverage
(16:54):
that for this company? So I think that's really how
I look at like my following in and I'm able
to turn it into a business because the cable TV commercials,
they're not where these companies are wanting to go anymore.
They're wanting to go to social How can we bring
our stuff to TikTok unless it's like a Super Bowl commercial,
It makes way more sense to go on social. So
(17:16):
I think it's just about leveraging my knowledge and my
ability of knowing how to grow on social media and
knowing how to bring those companies and their products to
a younger audience.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
So, Josh, when you think about you and your partner Chris,
when you think about engaging businesses, are you guys sitting
back on your heels and waiting for these great companies
to reach out to you or do you proactively go
out and engage with them?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah? And how do you do it?
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Yeah? No, we're very proactive. One of the first things
I learned from coming out to LA was how often
agencies and agents are in the get called business. Instead
of making calls, right, they kind of sit there and
they kind of wait around and if one of their
ten fifteen clients is someone that's getting a lot of
inbound and people are all They're like, perfect, I can
(18:08):
do this. I can answer the phone all day and
say yeah, sure, we'll take your money. Like me and
Chris will have these weekly meetings where we talk to
each other and I'm telling him about different brands I'm
enjoying right now, or different campaigns I see brands doing
that I'm really interested in. Or oh I see this
company kind of rising. Maybe there's an investment player equity
play there, and we talk about that and then we'll
(18:29):
go out and reach out to the company. This I
think shows a company. Okay, this is an authentic relationship.
This is the creator who is actually reaching out to us.
They really must enjoy our brand. This is something they
want more than just oh, we're gonna offer them a
paycheck and they want the money. So for us being proactive,
it gives us more ability to do what we want
(18:53):
with the campaign because we're usually able to not only
come with them with hey, we're really interested in working
with you guys. But here's three different tiers of what
the deal could look like. Here's you know that tier
one that's going to cost a little bit more, but
look at all these really cool different videos we can do,
or high production valued stuff we can do like we
did with Fallout where we made a whole trailer and
(19:13):
people were like, holy is Josh in the Fallout show
coming on probaty?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Right?
Speaker 5 (19:16):
So, then like you can have these different tiered things
and that allows us to feel like we get more
of that creative control, which my audience is going to
enjoy that more doesn't feel like a billboard. They watch
that ad and they actually consume it and they enjoy it.
They're like, this is how ads shouldn't be done. This
is instead of a Okay, here's another brand post.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
So, and Josh, is that through like social media, text
email or do you and Chris try to set up
a zoom or a meeting in person?
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Yeah? So it typically starts off with an email. I
think people really undervalue the cold email. That's what I did,
even when I was like seventeen eighteen, just to meet people.
It was Hey, I'm really interested in just getting to
pick your ear for thirty minutes. Would you like to
hop on a call? And that's how I was able
to make a lot of connections in the venture world,
and that's how I was able to meet people like
(20:04):
Mark Wahlberg when we started the production company, who helped
a ton Like, I think the cold email is so valuable.
So we'll start off typically with that.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
So what do you say in that email?
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Yeah, I mean it varies depending on you know, who
I'm talking to.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
But the Mark Wahlberg, Yeah, Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
I mean, for Mark, I'd looked up to him when
I was younger. I had always looked at him as
somebody that was able to transition from career to career
really really seamlessly, and well, you know, starts off and
he's Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, right, And I'd
always thought like that is pretty similar to the social
media creator, the person that makes like it's like a
one hit wonder kind of vibe. Today, you never know
(20:38):
how long that lifespan is going to be. If they
don't keep making really good content, they're going to disappear,
right the same way like musicians back then, they make
one good song, a couple of good songs, if that
was it, then they like fell off and no one
really heard from them again. So he was able to
transition and then go into acting and start doing his
acting and then he you know, becomes an entrepreneur and
is opening up different companies. It's like he might have
(20:59):
done steps in a different way, but I always had
looked at that and been like, oh, that's really inspiring.
I kind of want to follow those footsteps. So I
pretty much said that in the email, right, I looked
up to you. I've seen how you've had an ability
to transition from career to career. I'm someone that really
aspires to do that and wants my career to kind
of follow in your footsteps. And I'm starting this production company,
(21:21):
so I would love to be able to pick your
ear on just advice and how I can navigate Hollywood.
So I sent that email. It ended up getting received
by the head of his production company, Archie Gibbs, got
on the phone with him, talked with him for a while.
He was like, you really do remind me of Mark.
Let me get you in contact with Mark. And then
I got in contact with Mark and that's when we
(21:42):
started the joint venture for the production company. So that's
where my production company was for the first year with
his unscripted company, and he was able to, you know,
do the whole parade me around Hollywood and be able
to introduce me to certain people, and that really helped
kind of get us going at the beginning and allow
me to sit in rooms as a nineteen eighteen year
(22:03):
old and have people take me seriously because Mark had said, no,
I trust them.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
When you're approaching different deals, whether it's a brand, whether
it's a company. You've hit on something that Alex talks
about a lot, and we've talked about a lot on
this show, which is moving from sort of asset to principle,
and a lot of what is embedded in that is
getting a stake, getting equity. How much do you think
about sort of the ownership piece, because clearly the entrepreneurial
(22:31):
side of you wants to be an owner. It sounds
like is that fair?
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think I'm always thinking about that,
if that's from when I'm working with a brand or
a company, or even when I'm creating my own IP
as content, because you're building a library, right and that
can then go and sell and day. I mean, I
think it's something I always think about, especially because I
always want to be able to be a part of
the present in the future and keep my finger on
(22:57):
that pulse. And I think there's no better way than
investing in a company that's going to be massive in
the next five to seven years. Right, That allows me
in five to seven years to still be a part
of the conversation. So for me, it's something that's really important.
It's something that has been given to me as advice
when talking to people like Ashton Kutcher, and he said,
you know, if I had taken equity in every single
(23:18):
one of the deals that I had done for commercials
when I was younger, and instead of the paycheck, even
if I cut the paycheck in half and took it
as equity instead, I would be one hundred extracher than
I am today. So there's just been a lot of
people that you know, from me doing those calls and
cold emails, like that's the lessons that have been taught
to me and those people have been through it. And
I always like to pride myself from knowing what I
(23:40):
know and knowing what I don't. So I'm going to
listen to the people that do know it and hopefully
make the right decisions.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I mean, it's interesting too. I mean, just to proud
to you a little bit. There are a lot I mean,
you talk about the echoes and the similarities with Mark Wahlberg,
And you said it earlier, Josh, there are a lot
of similarities between what's happened with athletes and what's happened
with creators. Don't you think I mean this whole notion
of not just endorsing a brand, but being I mean,
this is something you've talked about a lot also from
(24:11):
your early days as a player.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And look, I think that the real power is in
the talent, right and I think we've seen this in
college sports. We've seen this on entrepreneurship where at one point,
probably Mark Wahlberg and I started, a talent was just
a talent. You get a fee and you stay in
your corner. Today the pendulum is shifting anile with the
actual players and the students have more power than the
(24:33):
NC DOUBLEA. I guess for me, you know, I entered
the Big Leads at eighteen years old, and I was
an All Star at nineteen years old. So by nature,
the power came to me because I was able to
make an impact. And I think the same is. You
know for you guys, companies where there's AREMANI new balance.
Whoever you work with they want you to bring, you know,
enterprise value to them revenue, eyeballs, and you're doing that
(24:56):
as well as anybody. Do you do you see that
as well?
Speaker 5 (24:58):
Yeah? No, I mean for sure, I think that's what
they look at when they're deciding who they want to
align with. Who do we want to have back our brand,
Who do we want to have be the modern day?
You know, you don't put the brand logo up on
a billboard anymore. You can stick it on someone's back
and they can walk around and wear it, right, So
I think that's exactly what they're.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Looking at all. Right.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
So, Josh, if you were a part owner of the
Minnesota Timbules and the Links, two or three things that
you would be thinking about to position those brands ahead
of the rest of the other teams.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think one thing that I've
noticed a couple teams step in and really start focusing
on is, you know, their social play, and I think
that does build a massive community. Like when I I'm
a big Buffalo Bills fan, and I think they are
one of the teams that I've noticed through sports that
are doing an incredible job from their social side, Like
(25:47):
when you look at their TikTok, when you look at
the videos they're posting and how much they're posting. Their
social team is in on every single trend that's going
on as soon it's as it's happening, and they're getting
their players to get involved in it every single week
when they're in practice and you know, coming off of
practice or going in to start like, they're always getting
these really cool clips, and I think that does going
(26:09):
back to like building community, it does really get the
fan to get to know more about the you know,
their favorite quarterback Josh Allen Right, to get to know
more about the new wide receiver coming into the team,
Keon Coleman. It's the same thing we've almost seen with
the people getting obsessed with watching the Hard Knocks stuff
and then all of a sudden, people are like, oh,
well they're one of my new favorite teams now just
because they've just gotten this Hard Knocks and you really
(26:31):
get to see, you know, how much these guys are
putting into this. It's not just oh, we're going out
and we're playing a fun sport today. This is their
lives and they are putting every single ounce of like blood,
sweat and tears into it every single day, and you
get to start to have that same feeling like transcend
through you by watching the content. So for me, I
think social obviously is a massive play to get the
(26:55):
fans just to ride even more and more for your team.
But I mean with Minnesota, you got some new guys
coming in this year, so getting to film that dynamic
and how you guys are building off of, you know,
a great year last year, Anthony Edwards absolutely ball and
out in the playoffs. Like getting to film this journey
as this new team comes together with a huge trade,
(27:17):
to me, that's something I would really want to watch,
and I think separates like there's not people doing their
own videos of these big trades and how this new
dynamic is coming into work together and how these two
superstars are gonna blend and mesh. Like that's something as
a fan of just sports, I'd want to see all
the time and I would consume.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
So let's stick with sports if we can, because you know,
one of the things you're clearly a passionate fan. It
is fascinating. Just as an aside that the Buffalo Bills,
with all apologies to Bill's Mafi, is the most forward
thing when you think Buffalo, you.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Know, the way you would think yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
But as you look across the sports world, like from
a league or from a sports perspective, like who understands
their audience the best. I mean, you've done some work
with the NHL, I know, like who is sort of
getting it out there.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
I do think that NFL is probably at the top.
I would say, I think the NBA is doing really
cool things as well. Like I think a lot of
people were quick to hate on like the play in tournament,
but I think it gave us incredible basketball. Yeah, Like,
I just think that the NFL has done a good
job of not only knowing their audience but knowing how
(28:27):
to expand their audience as well. And even the stuff
with you know, Taylor Swift, like them playing into that.
There was a lot of people at the beginning that
were like kind of getting mad about it, but when
you look at the growth and how many you know, guys,
girlfriends now aren't just you know, Oh, I cheer for
the Kansas City Chiefs because of Taylor Swift. They actually
have become fans of the game. It's it's done something
(28:51):
that that wouldn't have happened if they didn't start showing
Taylor Swift at those games, right like that, that type
of community wouldn't have been as big into football if
that didn't happen. So I think they saw that and
they ran with it, and that was a really smart play.
I think, I don't know if i'd necessarily call this
the league doing it. I think Caitlyn Clark is doing
it for the WNBA and being like the biggest talked
(29:11):
about athlete this past year and bringing such a massive audience.
Me personally, I never watched WNBA really before I watched
Kaitlyn Clark in the WNBA, and I had watched you know,
girls college March Madness a bunch, but I'd never been
in to the WNBA and she and Angel Reese had
(29:31):
come together and they have absolutely blown that thing up.
So for me, I think, you know, those are the
three leagues that I look at that like get their fans.
I think the NHL has a long way to go.
I think that, you know, they still in a lot
of ways are an old or like elder states Men
kind of ran league and they don't think about changing
(29:53):
it and they kind of want to stay traditional. It
seems so for me, I think they're one that I
would love to see start to make some changes because
I love hockey and yeah, is a sport that I
want to have grown. And I know it's a hard
barrier to entry because it's expensive to get the equipment
and the ice and there's things that you need to
pay for that's harder than you know, basketball, you can
just go get a ball and play in a park.
(30:14):
So you got to make the barrier to entry easier.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
So, Josh, I want to shift a little bit and
talk about your investment thesis because you know, you start
a venture capital firm. I believe what's the idea behind it?
I mean clearly from the beginning. You know you talked
about even the tour that you went on, you know,
sort of gathering these you know, like minded creators around
(30:39):
you to help sort of create sort of a super friends. Yeah,
model talk to us about investments. How do you suss
them out? How do they come to you? What's the process?
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Yeah? Yeah, So for me, when I'm looking at a
company or I'm looking to invest, I think there's a
couple of things I go down.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
First.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
It's always looking at the founder, right, like what is
their history? What have they done before? Because if I
believe in a founder then I'm going to invest in them,
right more than the company. Oh great founders going to
find a way to make it work, if that's pivoting
their company, if that's you know, figuring out how do
they go from here to doing something else? Like I
(31:18):
a lot of the time love to invest in the
founder themselves. Past that, it's looking at how can I
Josh Richards as a talent or I Josh Richards as
you know, the owner of cross check, Like, how can
I actually help this company? What am I going to
be able to provide?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
How am I going to be able to boost them?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
So a little bit to what we were talking about
earlier is are they somebody that needs to get into
the conversation with gen Z? Is that an audience that
they want to acquire? Well, you know, I'm somebody that
has grown an audience of forty million plus online, so
I know how to do that. I can help them
with acquiring that audience, with getting to gen Z. So
(31:56):
for me, I think those are like the two things
that I look at most when investing is you know,
what am I going to be able to provide to
them to be a good partner? And then as a
founder themselves, how much do I actruly believe in that
founder because I love being able to invest in the
founder more than the company a lot at the time.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
So, Josh, I'm sure one of the challenges and part
of the gift and curse of being so young as
you think about raising capital outside capital limited partners, whether
it's institution or family offices, walk us through if Jason
is a founder of a company and you like it
and you want to make a big bet or a
medium sized bet, are you thinking about it from your
balance sheet? Are you thinking about it from investors? And
(32:35):
how do you think about raising capital?
Speaker 5 (32:37):
So when we raise capital for Animal Capital, we really
were trying to make a splash in the space with
the people that were attached to it, right, So the
people that we were bringing it was all about when
we're going to go to a company and we're talking
about investing, look at all the people that are also
under this list that are willing to also you know,
(32:59):
help in some way.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
So for us, remind us who those people are.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Yeah, So for us, it was you know, getting people
in like Thomas Tull who absolute killer, getting in people
like the Winkleboss Twins, getting in people like Mark Wahlberg
getting in those people that have leverage and have built
in audience as well in a plethor of different spaces, right, Like,
those people are all coming from different areas of entertainment
(33:25):
and this industry, so we're able to get advice from
many different lanes and people that have dealt with different
companies before in different lanes. So that's kind of like
how we were going to raise. We were going to
have the max amount of partners we could and really
try to make us splash. This was also something that
I was doing at a young age, and I wanted
people to be able to look past the fact that
(33:47):
I was just you know, nineteen twenty years old when
I was starting this. So then going to you know,
make this bet. I'm always looking at it as other
people's money, you know, this is this isn't something where
I can go and have fun. It's not gambling. I'm
not out here like playing with my own money. It's
a very serious responsibility when you're you know, investing other
(34:08):
people's money. And I always hold it in that faster
than in that light. I always think about it that
way because I want to be able to go and
raise fun too and have all those people want to
come back in and invest again when we go and
raise you know, thirty, So it's it's yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
And Josh, you talked about founders and the key of it.
I always refer to investing the jockey at the horse.
So what are some of those qualities that you're looking
for specifically that you turn to Chris and say, you
know what, we have to back this guy, Jason, He's
really got it.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
What are those things look like?
Speaker 5 (34:54):
One that's always the easiest is like looking at the
person's like track record, right, being able to see things
that they've done in the past. Is this their second
or third time doing something? What have their other companies
look like? And then it's also the team around them
and how the team I think acts with that founder.
Like I like being able to see how the team
(35:15):
around the founder it feels. How are they like on
the call when I'm having a meeting with all of them,
are they people that seem like they want to ride
and die for this founder? Like? Is this a place
where people are going to, you know, go to the
trenches for each other or is it a place that
you can see, man, you guys are like just holding
together here? You know what I mean, Like one small
(35:35):
little separation or one off put comment and this whole
thing can come crumbling down. Right, So I think it's
really important to go and look past not only how
the founder cares about, you know, business or when they're
looking at you know, what school do they go to
or anything, but how are they interacting with the employees
and their partners and the people that they're working with.
Because the last thing you want is to invest into
a company that ends up having a partner feud and
(35:58):
you don't want to be in that. So I think
that's really important to me. But yeah, I think those
are those are the ones that I feel like I
find myself looking at the most when I'm in those meetings.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
And so, you know, as we look at the media landscape,
obviously we've talked a lot about social media. You said
earlier something I think really important, which is you're trying
to bridge all of the media together. You've done some
work with Amazon. How does that come about? And what
is it about Amazon that appealed to you and how
does that work?
Speaker 5 (36:29):
I think amazon Is mission is quite similar to mine
with what they're doing with Prime Video, bringing in Thursday
night football in the unscripted and scripted content that they're
bringing into Prime Video. So for me, it's I'm able
to go to a home that has the same mission
and I feel like, Okay, we're both now working together
(36:52):
in a more in a better fashion to both complete
our goals. I'm able to go to Amazon and I'm
able to get plugged in with athletes, and I'm able
to get plugged in with the NFL, and I'm able
to do those things that I want to do on
the sports side. But then as well, I'm able to
bring in my scripted content. I'm able to bring in
my unscripted content to a home where they're able to
kind of take everything I have. So for me, it
(37:13):
was just it was a it was a perfect like relationship.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
So given that we're sitting here, you know, with the
guy who used to play baseball, you obviously have a
lot of insights into the sports world, like who were
the present company excluded? Because he doesn't need to he
doesn't need the attention. I mean, who are the athletes
who pay attention to in terms of their social following,
in terms of you know, their sophistication when it comes
(37:38):
to building an audience.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
Yeah, yeah, I think jenen Brunson's done a good job
with his podcast. I think them opening that up and
believing in it after a rough start, Like they opened
that podcast and they went oh and four right after
their team lost the next four games right after doing
that podcast, so people were on them pretty heavy, like
don't do this anymore. Stop the podcast, like this isn't working,
(37:59):
and it's just one of those like unfortunate coincidences I think,
where you know they're doing the podcast and they start
to lose, so then you know, fans aren't gonna be
happy about that. They're like, oh, what you're You're not
able to practically do the podcast, when in all reality,
you know they're super patience. Everybody knows that they're just
like they're laid. So they got a tough, tough go
(38:20):
at the beginning, but they kept with it and I
think it's an really enjoyable watch and I do like
what they're doing with that. Paul Rabel is somebody that
has done a great job. It isn't obviously playing right now,
but a former la crosse athlete that's been able to
pivot and build an entire empire, and he has his
stuff with the PLO. He's working on a movie right now.
(38:42):
Like the things he's been able to pivot towards and do,
I've always found really impressive in respect and grew up
watching him and calling him the million dollar Man, the
first guy to make a million dollars from lacrosse, Like
that was always a huge thing for us as kids
when we wanted to go and become professional cross players,
because it was like, oh my gosh, he was able
to do it and he didn't need to also go
(39:04):
be a teacher or do something else as well. This
is crazy. So yeah, I think those are a couple
of guys that I look at a lot. I'm hoping
to see more and more in the NHL of guys
starting to come out. Like I did a video with
Mitch Marner and a couple other guys. Dean Dawkins was
one of them and then a cross player as well,
And when we did that video, it was great to
(39:24):
see like Mitch Marner just being himself on camera and
joking around and having that and like, you don't get
to see that from NHL guys ever, Like McDavid doesn't
even have a social media right and he's like the
number one guy in the league. So that becomes a
massive problem for a league when like your best players
don't even care to post. Yeah. Right, So for me,
I want to see, like I want to see Austin
(39:46):
Matthews giving his take on situations in the NHL. I
want to see those guys getting to talk more. Like
for me, that would be awesome.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Well, because it's interesting, you know your point earlier about
the NFL sort of coming on strong. The NBA was
on that corner for a long time, you know, I mean,
you saw, you know, such a player driven league, and
the NFL, as it often does, it's like, okay, we
got this now, I mean, and you really have seen
just a really concerted effort on the parts of teams
(40:16):
and the parts of players to just get out there more.
It's fascinating that it's happening.
Speaker 5 (40:21):
Even from like them having like the postgame interviews, like
the way they joke around in the postgame interviews and
they have fun sometimes in them. You know, Like that's
something that I see in the NBA and I see
in the NFL that I don't see in the NHL whatsoever.
Like guys are up there and they might have just
had the best performance of all time and scored like
(40:41):
four goals and had two assists, and they'll be like,
so like talk about it, and the guy will be like, yeah, no,
I just coaches in the team and that's really why
I was able to do that, doing it for the boy.
And it's like, no, dude, you did it. You had
four goals and two assists. You did everything toeah like
have a little like yeah, no, I'm that guy. Like
people want to see that a little bit, right, and
they don't. That's just not how you're taught to play,
(41:03):
like dressing rooms from when you're three years old. It's
always like, no, it's the team, it's the team. It's
the team.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
That's no way.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
That sounds exactly like major League Baseball, so similar to
base I mean, I remember Josh's a rookie, Like I
couldn't even go back to the back of the plane
to use the restroom and you're supposed to get there
early face in the locker room, if you know. Goose
Gossage was awesome, but he was like twice my age.
I was eighteen, he was forty four.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
I was so.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Scared of him.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yeah right, and yes sir, yes, And then you look
back and you know things are starting to change.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
But I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
I mean, NFL, NBA, they're a lot more pop culture
and they're.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Like, yeah, I'm that guy.
Speaker 5 (41:39):
Yeah, we would never.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Be able to say that in baseball.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
No, I do have a question about because Jason's mentioned
a few times the Josh Richards Empire, and I'm always
fascinated by entrepreneur's vision. So if you think about your
vision for the next seven to ten years, I'm trying
to think about what is a great example. Are you
thinking about your empire that looks a little bit like
Ryan Secret with a blend of Mark Wahlberg with a
(42:02):
splash of Sequoia capital tell us what the vision looks like.
Speaker 5 (42:06):
Yeah, I mean I think you did a pretty good
job there, and that sounds like a pretty great next
for me. But no, I think, yeah, I've always looked
at it as I think Mark Wahlberg is the example
that I've I've used a lot. Just his ability to
be in so many different fields, I think, to me
is something I always have enjoyed. I've never been somebody
(42:29):
that just wants to kind of, you know, stick to
one thing and do that one thing and that.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
That be it.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
So I really hope in the next five to seven
were able to grow at Crosscheck and be at the
forefront of creating content for gen Z and scripted and unscripted.
I really hope to continue getting to not only be
a part of content, but get more and more into
acting and scripted content myself and being in front of
the camera. So I think mark for me is definitely
that I guess goal or kind of you know, path
(42:57):
that I would really like to to go down.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
You know who I see a lot of Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
I will take that, yeah, every single.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Day, especially because like when you because when you talk
to Ryan, I mean he does such an amazing job
of talking about essentially like putting it on his back, right,
I mean with Deadpool being the example, right, I mean
that's a movie that was essentially, as he tells it,
kind of left for dead. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (43:23):
I mean, do you know that he leaked the first
the first trailer piece that was him?
Speaker 3 (43:28):
It was that smart.
Speaker 5 (43:29):
He I was so smart And.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
That's what got it.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
Yeah, That's what really got it done. Is like they
had this little test shoot they had done and it
somehow got leaked and no one knows, and like Ryan
was able to leak and it got so much fan
attention that they were like, we have to do this,
we have to And that was him believing in himself
and taking a risk and then look how it paid off.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Right, And I believe the next part of that story
is they shoot the movie and then he literally walks
off the set in the suit and takes the suit
home because he knows they're not going to market it
the way that he wants it to be marketed, and
he does all these like gorilla videos that then markets
the markets the movie. I mean, it's also this this
(44:14):
idea of working with brands in an authentic way, because
that's what Maximum Effort has done so much of. And
when I hear you talk about what you and Chris
are doing, that sort of approach seems very So. You know,
you're going to be a team owner, You're gonna have
a billion dollars franchises. Yeah right, We're going to end
(44:39):
this as we do, with a rapid fire, so we'll
bounce it back and forth. What's one word to describe
your deal making style?
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Proactive?
Speaker 3 (44:47):
What's more important your instincts or data instincts?
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Who's your dream deal making partner I'm.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
Gonna go Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Ah nice.
Speaker 4 (44:56):
What's the best piece of advice you ever received on
deal making or business?
Speaker 5 (45:00):
Can I give two insertions? I think one being the
invest in the founder and not necessarily the product. And
then two, when you're creating a company or you're gonna
be investing, or you're dealing with someone that's going to
be a long term partner and you're making that decision
on who that partner is going to be. I think
it's really really important to know that's going to be
(45:23):
someone that you can go to the trenches with, that
you wake up in the morning and you're really excited
to get to work with this person, because if not,
it's not gonna be fun, it's not gonna feel great,
it's gonna be such a tedious thing, and you're never
gonna be able to put forth your best effort.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
What's the worst advice you've ever been given?
Speaker 5 (45:41):
There were people on the business side that I told
me I should step away from content and focus more
on the entrepreneurial side, and I think that's probably the
silliest thing that has ever been said to me.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
What is your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
Oh the song I was listening to on the way
year was Sunday Morning by Maroon five, So I'll go
with that.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
All right.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
You can only watch one sport for the rest of
your life. Which one is it?
Speaker 5 (46:07):
Gosh, this is so hard.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Test to your Canadian roots.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
I know.
Speaker 5 (46:13):
And if it was live, I go hockey and it's
not even close. If it's live, it's hockey and it's
not even close. And on TV TV.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Football, Okay, what team do you want to see win
a championship more than any male?
Speaker 5 (46:27):
Mayple leaves so badly. Please, just in my lifetime, make
it pass for life. Please.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
One fun fact about you that some of your colleagues
will be surprised that you have.
Speaker 5 (46:41):
I did dance growing up. I don't think people would
expect that because I'm a terrible dancer. But I did
do hip hop dance for like a year growing up.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Do you want to show us a little I don't think.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
I think I just could. I think I could just
do the worm when I was younger, so I thought
I was going to be a really good dancer and
it did not translate whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
So all right, well, this has been really Thank you
for doing this.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
No, Thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.
Our producers are Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong, and Lizzie Phillip. Original
music and engineering by Blake Maples. Our managing editor is
David E. Ravella. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly, Brendan
(47:30):
Francis Newnham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Kyle Kramer, Andrew Barden,
Kelly Laferrier, and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our head
of podcasts, additional support from Rachel Carnivali and Elena sos Angeles.
Joshua Devaux is our director of photography. Rubob Shakir is
(47:52):
our creative director. Art direction is from Jacqueline Kessler. Casting
by Julia Manns. Our associate producer is Natasha Camera operation
by Stephen Neil and Linnea Jolson. Our associate producer is
Natasha Abilard. Our gaffer is Kelly Porterfield, and our grip
is Justin Birch. Alex Diacanis is our video editor. Listen
(48:16):
to the deal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you
get your podcasts. You can also tune into the video
Companion on Bloomberg Originals and on Bloomberg TV. Thanks for listening.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Jason Kelly. I'm Alex Rodriguez, and welcome to
the deal. Coming up today, Josh Richards. Alex, you're pretty influential.
I would argue this guy is more influential millions and
millions of followers on social media. He's going to talk
to us all about how to build an audience.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It's incredible.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
I mean you talk about not only is he more influential,
he's probably like seven eight times more.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
This is how the new stars are going to look like.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
And I would not be surprised if NFL and will
be based ball NBA hires someone like Josh to help
them understand what the audience wants.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
He knows it as well as anyone.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
He's been incredibly aggressive as an entrepreneur and as a partner.
He's partnered with Dave Portnoy, He's partner with Mark Wahlberg. He,
like you, has gone out and found incredible mentors. He's
going to tell us how he is building an empire.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Can't wait?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
All right, coming up, Josh Richards. All right, so introduce
yourself and tell us what you do.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Yeah, my name is Josh Richards. And I do social media,
and I'm also an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That undersells it, grossly undersells it. You're highly influential, you know.
We like to talk about signature deals on this show.
A lot of people know you through your Barstool podcast.
Let's start there, because that is a deal that, at
least for a lot of us, kind of comes out
(01:42):
of nowhere. I think we have a little bit of
knowledge of the backstory. You got to share that with us.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Yeah, yeah, So that really started when I had made
a disc track on past friend of mine on social media,
so we were just playing fun, made this song and
it accumulated like one hundred million streams across platforms. Blew
up was treading on Twitter, and that was the first
time Dave Portnoy had seen TikTokers on social media. So
(02:10):
he tweets out and he goes, why these wiggled showing
up on my feet and so instantly, being a fan
of Dave previously, like growing up watching his content and
watching Barstool, I was like, Okay, I got to get
into contact with this guy, like I know he'll like
keep going with it if like I can get him
on a live or do something so we end up
getting in contact with him. We go live on Instagram.
We end up having I want to say, ninety to
(02:32):
one hundred thousand concurrens watching this stream of me and
Dave because just like you guys said, it's like this
is out of nowhere. Why is Josh Richards and Dave
Portnoy making content together? And we did that live. I
explained all the drama to him, and me and him
were going back and forth, cracking jokes. We were charismatic,
we were able to flow with each other. We were
able to go back and forth. And we started getting
hit up by different companies about putting on a show,
(02:54):
and Snapchat was one that reached out and they were like, oh,
would you and Dave want to do like a segmented
show every single week? So I get on a call
with Dave.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
We have.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
An hour call scheduled. I believe we're about two minutes
into this call, and I've pitched on, oh, Snapchat wants
to do show, and he's like, all right, I don't
want to do a show with Snapchat. We're like, okay, well,
we got fifty eight minutes left here. And the whole
pitch of this call is already toast, right, so we
kind of start just spitballing random ideas and we're like,
all right. I had a show at the time called
Tea Talk where on my YouTube I would go through
(03:24):
all the drama that was online and I'd kind of
like poke light at it and make fun of it.
So I thought, why not just kind of take what
we did with the live stream and combine that with
the Tea Talk, and let's just make a podcast where
we talk about all the drama going on in gen
z and social media and I'll explain it to you.
It'll be this really cool co viewing opportunity where kids
can watch with their parents. Right, kids are always trying
to explain what's going on social media their parents. Their
(03:45):
parents aren't quite getting it. They get to watch Dave
and be like, I relate to that guy, and then
people that are my age and younger you get to
watch me and Brie and be like, oh, well, I
relate to them. So it created this really cool experience
and it made a lot of people say like, what,
why are these two together? And I think that's a
reaction that myself and my company have really looked at
(04:05):
as that means you're doing something right when people are
asking why, when people are starting to get intrigued. I
mean that means you're on the forefront of something really special.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I think so and you and Brie remind us who
Brie is? How you guys got together?
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Yes, so Breed Chicken Fry. She is the other host
of the podcast, and we had come across her. She
was already an employee at Barstool. She had been doing
her own podcast, and we had felt like me and
Dave had a good dynamic, but there was something missing.
We needed another point of view. We needed someone else.
I was gonna kind of bringing an imposing side because
a lot of times me and Dave would agree with
(04:38):
each other. So we cycled through a couple of the
people at Barstool, trying out different talent, seeing who would
work out, and when Breed came on, it just fit.
I think having that female perspective is huge, especially because
a lot of my audience is female. I think having
someone that was quick and witty and was able to,
you know, hang with us at the same time. She
was really the perfect fit. And I think that's what
truly made BFFs a really, really good show, is having
(05:02):
all of us four years in.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
That's amazing four years in. Yeah. Did you say her
name is Breed Chicken Fry.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
Yeah, so it's great man. Yeah, she had liked the
chicken fry snacks, so she had called her usally Breonna
Chicken Fry. And it's kind of just there you go. Yeah,
it stuck, all right.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So let's go back even further because before you get
to BFFs, as you mentioned, you're creating highly successful YouTube channel,
you're also building an empire from a pretty early age.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Why.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Yeah, Yeah, I've said this a little bit before, but
I've been touched on a lot. Ever since I was
really young. I had always had this like calling or
feeling where I was like, I know the name Josh
Richards will be known, and I used to pray about
it before I would go to bed every single night.
And you know, when I was three or four, I
thought I was going to be a superhero. I thought
I was gonna be Ben ten Right. That same notion
of like the name Josh Richers will we know never
(05:53):
left me. Went from that to being oh, I'm gonna
be a pro hockey player. I'm gonna be an NHL player,
and then oh, I'm going to be a professional across
player and then oh, I'm going to use my love
for hockey and create a hockey shirt company and I'll
have the biggest apparel brand in hockey and that will
bring my name, Josh Richards around, And it just kind
of kept going and going and going into one day,
my sister had asked me to go in a video
(06:16):
with her on this app called Musically, and so she
has this little like dance rou team we're gonna do
and I was like, okay, cool, let's do this. And
I'm thirteen, I just finished my eighth grade of school
and she's twelve, and so we do this little video
into us. It blows up, running around the house, We're
yelling and screaming. It got like fifty likes, I think,
(06:36):
but to us that was viue. We were like, oh
my goodness, we don't even know fifty people. So we
go and I look at the comments and there's like
two or three of the comments that are like, hey,
what's his username? And they're from girls, and I'm like
kind of feeling myself now, I'm like, all right, I
got to make myself one of these accounts. So I
make one and very quickly kind of go about it
in an entrepreneurial spirit. I had started a couple different
(06:59):
brands in my neighborhood. If that was like a lacrosse
brand where I would string sticks and dye the mesh
and wax coate it so is waterproof and when you
were playing in the rain, your pocket consistency stayed the same.
Or I had a hockey shirt company with different slogans
where we'd go to tournaments. So right away I was like, oh,
is there a way to make money off this? Like
how can I turn this into a business? And so
me and my sister found the live component of the
app where you could go live, and much like Twitch today,
(07:22):
that's like one of the biggest platforms. You'll go live
and people will subscribe or send donos. And not only
were they able to do that on this platform when
I was going live as well, but there was actually
a list that showed you the top two hundred spending
customers every single day, so the people that were donating
the most. So I was sitting there at thirteen, like,
well this is silly, Like why do I need ten
(07:44):
million followers when I can have the top two hundred
spenders every single day, just kind of go direct to consumer.
So I had my sister bring out the iPad. She'd
sit beside me, and I put on our fifteen percent
commission based salary, and she'd sit beside me and she'd
go through that list of two hundred people logged into
my account, follow every single one of them, like fifteen
other videos. They'd get sixteen notifications from a random Josh
(08:06):
Richard's kid. They'd see him live because my profile would
be blinking. They'd be like, oh, all right, let me
go check it out. They'd come into the live. I'd
know it was one of them because their user names
were highlighted and read because I just followed them, so
I would give him actual attention, be like, Yo, what's up.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
What's up.
Speaker 5 (08:20):
They'd end up sending gifts and me and myself would
be like nice, got him. And so then we kept
doing that, and we like did that in my parents'
basement for a year or two years, just starting to
make like really good money and.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
What's real money.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
We were at probably after the first month, we were
doing like six hundred dollars a week. I'm like thirteen
years old, right, So we were sitting there like Wow,
we're we are raking it in. We're set for life,
like we were blown away. And I remember my dad
comes to me one day because all this money is
going from the app, threw his PayPal into my bank account,
so he's getting a notification every time, and you know,
(08:53):
it happens a couple of times. I think it was
probably the third week we're doing it, and he comes
up and he's like, all right, I get it, you're
in high school, but drugs and selling drugs, that's just
not the end. I'm like that, no, no, no, no, that's
not what it is. That's not what it is. So
I have to explain him what social media is and
going live and he's like, all right, I'm not sure
I really understand, but they're making great money, so keep
(09:17):
it up, you know. And so then he started diving
deep into social media. And I always credit my parents
because I wouldn't be here without them. They were my
biggest supporters through everything from the early companies I tried
to do. They would, you know, buy the blank T
shirts and give me one hundred yard mess school for
the cross thing. And then as soon as I started
doing social media, my dad was and mom We're both like,
all right, we need to know everything we can about this.
(09:38):
We need to learn as much as we can. Oh,
I'll take a day off of work, Josh to fly
you to this event in Washington so that you can
go and collab with other creators. And there were all
these little things that you know, they didn't really have
to do, but they were just the most supportive parents
in the world and allowed me to follow the stream
at a young age and go to the United States,
go to different countries when I was younger and should
be in school. Like they believed in me and believed
(10:01):
in what I was doing. So yeah, really really huge props.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So then how soon into that journey are you like, Okay,
I'm in it. This is going to be my life.
I am devoting myself to this. I am following candidly
a pretty well tried path, like I'm moving to LA
like I'm doing it. Like when did it sort of
flip for you?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (10:22):
After two years of being on social media is really
when I think I decided like, no, I can. I
could turn this into something full time. I could really
turn this into a media empire, build companies off of
this and continue to grow and grow in my own
social as well. So after those two years I started
to make some friends in the social media world. We
(10:43):
decided we were going to go on a tour, so
we had gotten altogether, had this person that was repping
the tour and kind of managing it. We did I believe,
thirty cities across the United States, and that was the
moment I think I was first able to see you know,
I come from a small town fifteen thousand and sixteen
(11:03):
thousand people, and everyone already knew me before I did
social media, So there wasn't this like rise to fame
I felt or anything like that in my town. If anything,
it was the opposite, because I was doing something different
and new, right. It was more like, oh, this loser
doing social media. So that was the first time I'd
ever seen faces to these people commenting and liking my content.
And that's really when I was like, holy cow, there's
(11:26):
really something here.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
So we finished the tour. We end up in a
pretty tough situation where us as kids, we hadn't signed anything.
We had kind of done all these handshake deals with
these people running the tour, and we all get screwed
out of a bunch of money. The tour did really
well for them. We were doing like two thousand people,
sold out shows every single place we went. On top
of that, we do dinners and VIP things and all
(11:50):
these different things where people would select to their favorite
fans or their favorite person to see what was So
you were supposed to get that cut and I think
I got seven hundred dollars by the end of it.
Like it was like it didn't even cover the hotels,
you know what I mean, like or the food that
we had to go and get. So it was a
tough situation and it was a learning one that I
you know, I'm glad happened early, because right then I
was like, all right, this is a wild West. Social
(12:12):
media is new. No one's paying attention, like in the
sense of protecting the creator. There's no at this point,
there's no w MECAA. They're not coming to sign kids yet.
They they're not even like looking at what TikTok could be.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
And this is only what four or five years ago?
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Yeah, this is twenty nineteen, ye like, so it's not
that long ago, right, And that was the moment where
I was like, Okay, I need to start something that's
going to be by the creator for the creator. So
I started a management company. That's when I moved to
LA That's when me and all my friends start the
Sway House. That's when I get looped in with Chris
Sautel is my business partner now with Crosscheck. He was
at ICM. We had to sign to an agency, our
(12:50):
management company because we didn't have a license so for
them to be repped like we needed that. So we
went and met with ICM. Chris had started the digital
division over there, so that was a person we were
put in contact with and we worked out a deal
with them, started working with them. Chris became also my
manager at the time or my agent, and then as
(13:10):
time moves forward, I ended up leaving Talent X sell
my shares there and that's when I was like, all right,
I want to make a production company. I want to
start being able to bring together the worlds of social
and traditional media, start bridging those as they are getting
closer and closer together. And we all see our favorite
actors and athletes now doing social media, and now we
(13:32):
see social media influencers stepping into music and movies, and
as these worlds are colliding, like, how can I be
at the forefront of that and producing all that content.
So started Crosscheck. Chris was sitting in his comfy job
at ICM, and I was like, why don't you just
listen to me, this nineteen year old kid, and leave
your job and come and work with me, and we'll
(13:53):
start crosscheck together. So after a few months of you know,
continuously knocking on Chris's door and asking him, I convince uh,
and so he listened to me, came over, and then
we started cross Check and we've been doing that for
the last three years now.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
When it comes to like two middle aged dudes like
Jason and I, right, what content can we learn from
you that actually performs the best and which content performs
the worst?
Speaker 5 (14:18):
I mean content that performs the best versus worse. I
think that's very dependent on the creator and all the
person that's creating the content, right, because you already have
a built an audience. You know your audience. You're you've
been from the world of sports. You know anytime you're
gonna be talking about sports, that's gonna play to your audience.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
So I think more about like knowing what content's going
to do bad or knowing what content's going to do good,
It's about knowing your audience because that's gonna lead you
to the right path. So I know, for example, my
audience and my demographic. If I go on my TikTok,
it's gonna be seventy seventy five percent women, twenty twenty
five percent men, right. And I also know that the
(14:57):
age demo there is going to really range from sixteen
to probably twenty four, is really where my age demo sits.
So I go and think, Okay, what are people in
that age group gonna like? What content are this gonna
be fun for them? Okay, what's something relatable that we're
all doing?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
All right?
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Everyone's dating at that age, right, So how do I
bring in a really funny conversation or debate that me
and my girlfriend are going through? And I bring that
to TikTok and we're able to share it. And now
all these kids that are sixteen or twenty four are
sending you to their boyfriends, are sending me to their girlfriends,
and they're like, we literally had the exact same argument.
Oh my god, this is so crazy. My favorite creator
is going That is to me, what builds good content
(15:36):
when you're able to show to your audience that you
know you're going through the same things they're going through.
You're able to play that relatable card with them that
not only is gonna make good content, but continue your
building community.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
You know, one of the things you have been so
successful at and you've demonstrated even in the past few minutes,
is identifying and cultivating an audience. So you know you've
talked about sort of the creator side. How do you
essentially make a business out of those insights? Because it
feels like, I mean, if we're looking at your business ventures,
(16:23):
that's your I mean, this is an overuse term, that's
your superpower is understanding the audience. You're clearly an entrepreneur
as well. So how do you build something that leverages
those insights?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Yeah, I mean today every company is trying to find
a way to communicate with gen Z. How can I
help a company by investing or if I really enjoy
this brand and I want to be a part of it,
how can I leverage myself who knows how to communicate
to gen Z, who knows what they're interested in, knows
what they're likes and dislikes are. How can I leverage
(16:54):
that for this company? So I think that's really how
I look at like my following in and I'm able
to turn it into a business because the cable TV commercials,
they're not where these companies are wanting to go anymore.
They're wanting to go to social How can we bring
our stuff to TikTok unless it's like a Super Bowl commercial,
It makes way more sense to go on social. So
(17:16):
I think it's just about leveraging my knowledge and my
ability of knowing how to grow on social media and
knowing how to bring those companies and their products to
a younger audience.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
So, Josh, when you think about you and your partner Chris,
when you think about engaging businesses, are you guys sitting
back on your heels and waiting for these great companies
to reach out to you or do you proactively go
out and engage with them?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah? And how do you do it?
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Yeah? No, we're very proactive. One of the first things
I learned from coming out to LA was how often
agencies and agents are in the get called business. Instead
of making calls, right, they kind of sit there and
they kind of wait around and if one of their
ten fifteen clients is someone that's getting a lot of
inbound and people are all They're like, perfect, I can
(18:08):
do this. I can answer the phone all day and
say yeah, sure, we'll take your money. Like me and
Chris will have these weekly meetings where we talk to
each other and I'm telling him about different brands I'm
enjoying right now, or different campaigns I see brands doing
that I'm really interested in. Or oh I see this
company kind of rising. Maybe there's an investment player equity
play there, and we talk about that and then we'll
(18:29):
go out and reach out to the company. This I
think shows a company. Okay, this is an authentic relationship.
This is the creator who is actually reaching out to us.
They really must enjoy our brand. This is something they
want more than just oh, we're gonna offer them a
paycheck and they want the money. So for us being proactive,
it gives us more ability to do what we want
(18:53):
with the campaign because we're usually able to not only
come with them with hey, we're really interested in working
with you guys. But here's three different tiers of what
the deal could look like. Here's you know that tier
one that's going to cost a little bit more, but
look at all these really cool different videos we can do,
or high production valued stuff we can do like we
did with Fallout where we made a whole trailer and
(19:13):
people were like, holy is Josh in the Fallout show
coming on probaty?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Right?
Speaker 5 (19:16):
So, then like you can have these different tiered things
and that allows us to feel like we get more
of that creative control, which my audience is going to
enjoy that more doesn't feel like a billboard. They watch
that ad and they actually consume it and they enjoy it.
They're like, this is how ads shouldn't be done. This
is instead of a Okay, here's another brand post.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
So, and Josh, is that through like social media, text
email or do you and Chris try to set up
a zoom or a meeting in person?
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Yeah? So it typically starts off with an email. I
think people really undervalue the cold email. That's what I did,
even when I was like seventeen eighteen, just to meet people.
It was Hey, I'm really interested in just getting to
pick your ear for thirty minutes. Would you like to
hop on a call? And that's how I was able
to make a lot of connections in the venture world,
and that's how I was able to meet people like
(20:04):
Mark Wahlberg when we started the production company, who helped
a ton Like, I think the cold email is so valuable.
So we'll start off typically with that.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
So what do you say in that email?
Speaker 5 (20:12):
Yeah, I mean it varies depending on you know, who
I'm talking to.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
But the Mark Wahlberg, Yeah, Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
I mean, for Mark, I'd looked up to him when
I was younger. I had always looked at him as
somebody that was able to transition from career to career
really really seamlessly, and well, you know, starts off and
he's Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, right, And I'd
always thought like that is pretty similar to the social
media creator, the person that makes like it's like a
one hit wonder kind of vibe. Today, you never know
(20:38):
how long that lifespan is going to be. If they
don't keep making really good content, they're going to disappear,
right the same way like musicians back then, they make
one good song, a couple of good songs, if that
was it, then they like fell off and no one
really heard from them again. So he was able to
transition and then go into acting and start doing his
acting and then he you know, becomes an entrepreneur and
is opening up different companies. It's like he might have
(20:59):
done steps in a different way, but I always had
looked at that and been like, oh, that's really inspiring.
I kind of want to follow those footsteps. So I
pretty much said that in the email, right, I looked
up to you. I've seen how you've had an ability
to transition from career to career. I'm someone that really
aspires to do that and wants my career to kind
of follow in your footsteps. And I'm starting this production company,
(21:21):
so I would love to be able to pick your
ear on just advice and how I can navigate Hollywood.
So I sent that email. It ended up getting received
by the head of his production company, Archie Gibbs, got
on the phone with him, talked with him for a while.
He was like, you really do remind me of Mark.
Let me get you in contact with Mark. And then
I got in contact with Mark and that's when we
(21:42):
started the joint venture for the production company. So that's
where my production company was for the first year with
his unscripted company, and he was able to, you know,
do the whole parade me around Hollywood and be able
to introduce me to certain people, and that really helped
kind of get us going at the beginning and allow
me to sit in rooms as a nineteen eighteen year
(22:03):
old and have people take me seriously because Mark had said, no,
I trust them.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
When you're approaching different deals, whether it's a brand, whether
it's a company. You've hit on something that Alex talks
about a lot, and we've talked about a lot on
this show, which is moving from sort of asset to principle,
and a lot of what is embedded in that is
getting a stake, getting equity. How much do you think
about sort of the ownership piece, because clearly the entrepreneurial
(22:31):
side of you wants to be an owner. It sounds
like is that fair?
Speaker 5 (22:35):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think I'm always thinking about that,
if that's from when I'm working with a brand or
a company, or even when I'm creating my own IP
as content, because you're building a library, right and that
can then go and sell and day. I mean, I
think it's something I always think about, especially because I
always want to be able to be a part of
the present in the future and keep my finger on
(22:57):
that pulse. And I think there's no better way than
investing in a company that's going to be massive in
the next five to seven years. Right, That allows me
in five to seven years to still be a part
of the conversation. So for me, it's something that's really important.
It's something that has been given to me as advice
when talking to people like Ashton Kutcher, and he said,
you know, if I had taken equity in every single
(23:18):
one of the deals that I had done for commercials
when I was younger, and instead of the paycheck, even
if I cut the paycheck in half and took it
as equity instead, I would be one hundred extracher than
I am today. So there's just been a lot of
people that you know, from me doing those calls and
cold emails, like that's the lessons that have been taught
to me and those people have been through it. And
I always like to pride myself from knowing what I
(23:40):
know and knowing what I don't. So I'm going to
listen to the people that do know it and hopefully
make the right decisions.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I mean, it's interesting too. I mean, just to proud
to you a little bit. There are a lot I mean,
you talk about the echoes and the similarities with Mark Wahlberg,
And you said it earlier, Josh, there are a lot
of similarities between what's happened with athletes and what's happened
with creators. Don't you think I mean this whole notion
of not just endorsing a brand, but being I mean,
this is something you've talked about a lot also from
(24:11):
your early days as a player.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And look, I think that the real power is in
the talent, right and I think we've seen this in
college sports. We've seen this on entrepreneurship where at one point,
probably Mark Wahlberg and I started, a talent was just
a talent. You get a fee and you stay in
your corner. Today the pendulum is shifting anile with the
actual players and the students have more power than the
(24:33):
NC DOUBLEA. I guess for me, you know, I entered
the Big Leads at eighteen years old, and I was
an All Star at nineteen years old. So by nature,
the power came to me because I was able to
make an impact. And I think the same is. You
know for you guys, companies where there's AREMANI new balance.
Whoever you work with they want you to bring, you know,
enterprise value to them revenue, eyeballs, and you're doing that
(24:56):
as well as anybody. Do you do you see that
as well?
Speaker 5 (24:58):
Yeah? No, I mean for sure, I think that's what
they look at when they're deciding who they want to
align with. Who do we want to have back our brand,
Who do we want to have be the modern day?
You know, you don't put the brand logo up on
a billboard anymore. You can stick it on someone's back
and they can walk around and wear it, right, So
I think that's exactly what they're.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Looking at all. Right.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
So, Josh, if you were a part owner of the
Minnesota Timbules and the Links, two or three things that
you would be thinking about to position those brands ahead
of the rest of the other teams.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think one thing that I've
noticed a couple teams step in and really start focusing
on is, you know, their social play, and I think
that does build a massive community. Like when I I'm
a big Buffalo Bills fan, and I think they are
one of the teams that I've noticed through sports that
are doing an incredible job from their social side, Like
(25:47):
when you look at their TikTok, when you look at
the videos they're posting and how much they're posting. Their
social team is in on every single trend that's going
on as soon it's as it's happening, and they're getting
their players to get involved in it every single week
when they're in practice and you know, coming off of
practice or going in to start like, they're always getting
these really cool clips, and I think that does going
(26:09):
back to like building community, it does really get the
fan to get to know more about the you know,
their favorite quarterback Josh Allen Right, to get to know
more about the new wide receiver coming into the team,
Keon Coleman. It's the same thing we've almost seen with
the people getting obsessed with watching the Hard Knocks stuff
and then all of a sudden, people are like, oh,
well they're one of my new favorite teams now just
because they've just gotten this Hard Knocks and you really
(26:31):
get to see, you know, how much these guys are
putting into this. It's not just oh, we're going out
and we're playing a fun sport today. This is their
lives and they are putting every single ounce of like blood,
sweat and tears into it every single day, and you
get to start to have that same feeling like transcend
through you by watching the content. So for me, I
think social obviously is a massive play to get the
(26:55):
fans just to ride even more and more for your team.
But I mean with Minnesota, you got some new guys
coming in this year, so getting to film that dynamic
and how you guys are building off of, you know,
a great year last year, Anthony Edwards absolutely ball and
out in the playoffs. Like getting to film this journey
as this new team comes together with a huge trade,
(27:17):
to me, that's something I would really want to watch,
and I think separates like there's not people doing their
own videos of these big trades and how this new
dynamic is coming into work together and how these two
superstars are gonna blend and mesh. Like that's something as
a fan of just sports, I'd want to see all
the time and I would consume.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
So let's stick with sports if we can, because you know,
one of the things you're clearly a passionate fan. It
is fascinating. Just as an aside that the Buffalo Bills,
with all apologies to Bill's Mafi, is the most forward
thing when you think Buffalo, you.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Know, the way you would think yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
But as you look across the sports world, like from
a league or from a sports perspective, like who understands
their audience the best. I mean, you've done some work
with the NHL, I know, like who is sort of
getting it out there.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
I do think that NFL is probably at the top.
I would say, I think the NBA is doing really
cool things as well. Like I think a lot of
people were quick to hate on like the play in tournament,
but I think it gave us incredible basketball. Yeah, Like,
I just think that the NFL has done a good
job of not only knowing their audience but knowing how
(28:27):
to expand their audience as well. And even the stuff
with you know, Taylor Swift, like them playing into that.
There was a lot of people at the beginning that
were like kind of getting mad about it, but when
you look at the growth and how many you know, guys,
girlfriends now aren't just you know, Oh, I cheer for
the Kansas City Chiefs because of Taylor Swift. They actually
have become fans of the game. It's it's done something
(28:51):
that that wouldn't have happened if they didn't start showing
Taylor Swift at those games, right like that, that type
of community wouldn't have been as big into football if
that didn't happen. So I think they saw that and
they ran with it, and that was a really smart play.
I think, I don't know if i'd necessarily call this
the league doing it. I think Caitlyn Clark is doing
it for the WNBA and being like the biggest talked
(29:11):
about athlete this past year and bringing such a massive audience.
Me personally, I never watched WNBA really before I watched
Kaitlyn Clark in the WNBA, and I had watched you know,
girls college March Madness a bunch, but I'd never been
in to the WNBA and she and Angel Reese had
(29:31):
come together and they have absolutely blown that thing up.
So for me, I think, you know, those are the
three leagues that I look at that like get their fans.
I think the NHL has a long way to go.
I think that, you know, they still in a lot
of ways are an old or like elder states Men
kind of ran league and they don't think about changing
(29:53):
it and they kind of want to stay traditional. It
seems so for me, I think they're one that I
would love to see start to make some changes because
I love hockey and yeah, is a sport that I
want to have grown. And I know it's a hard
barrier to entry because it's expensive to get the equipment
and the ice and there's things that you need to
pay for that's harder than you know, basketball, you can
just go get a ball and play in a park.
(30:14):
So you got to make the barrier to entry easier.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
So, Josh, I want to shift a little bit and
talk about your investment thesis because you know, you start
a venture capital firm. I believe what's the idea behind it?
I mean clearly from the beginning. You know you talked
about even the tour that you went on, you know,
sort of gathering these you know, like minded creators around
(30:39):
you to help sort of create sort of a super friends. Yeah,
model talk to us about investments. How do you suss
them out? How do they come to you? What's the process?
Speaker 5 (30:49):
Yeah? Yeah, So for me, when I'm looking at a
company or I'm looking to invest, I think there's a
couple of things I go down.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
First.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
It's always looking at the founder, right, like what is
their history? What have they done before? Because if I
believe in a founder then I'm going to invest in them,
right more than the company. Oh great founders going to
find a way to make it work, if that's pivoting
their company, if that's you know, figuring out how do
they go from here to doing something else? Like I
(31:18):
a lot of the time love to invest in the
founder themselves. Past that, it's looking at how can I
Josh Richards as a talent or I Josh Richards as
you know, the owner of cross check, Like, how can
I actually help this company? What am I going to
be able to provide?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
How am I going to be able to boost them?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
So a little bit to what we were talking about
earlier is are they somebody that needs to get into
the conversation with gen Z? Is that an audience that
they want to acquire? Well, you know, I'm somebody that
has grown an audience of forty million plus online, so
I know how to do that. I can help them
with acquiring that audience, with getting to gen Z. So
(31:56):
for me, I think those are like the two things
that I look at most when investing is you know,
what am I going to be able to provide to
them to be a good partner? And then as a
founder themselves, how much do I actruly believe in that
founder because I love being able to invest in the
founder more than the company a lot at the time.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
So, Josh, I'm sure one of the challenges and part
of the gift and curse of being so young as
you think about raising capital outside capital limited partners, whether
it's institution or family offices, walk us through if Jason
is a founder of a company and you like it
and you want to make a big bet or a
medium sized bet, are you thinking about it from your
balance sheet? Are you thinking about it from investors? And
(32:35):
how do you think about raising capital?
Speaker 5 (32:37):
So when we raise capital for Animal Capital, we really
were trying to make a splash in the space with
the people that were attached to it, right, So the
people that we were bringing it was all about when
we're going to go to a company and we're talking
about investing, look at all the people that are also
under this list that are willing to also you know,
(32:59):
help in some way.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
So for us, remind us who those people are.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Yeah, So for us, it was you know, getting people
in like Thomas Tull who absolute killer, getting in people
like the Winkleboss Twins, getting in people like Mark Wahlberg
getting in those people that have leverage and have built
in audience as well in a plethor of different spaces, right, Like,
those people are all coming from different areas of entertainment
(33:25):
and this industry, so we're able to get advice from
many different lanes and people that have dealt with different
companies before in different lanes. So that's kind of like
how we were going to raise. We were going to
have the max amount of partners we could and really
try to make us splash. This was also something that
I was doing at a young age, and I wanted
people to be able to look past the fact that
(33:47):
I was just you know, nineteen twenty years old when
I was starting this. So then going to you know,
make this bet. I'm always looking at it as other
people's money, you know, this is this isn't something where
I can go and have fun. It's not gambling. I'm
not out here like playing with my own money. It's
a very serious responsibility when you're you know, investing other
(34:08):
people's money. And I always hold it in that faster
than in that light. I always think about it that
way because I want to be able to go and
raise fun too and have all those people want to
come back in and invest again when we go and
raise you know, thirty, So it's it's yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
And Josh, you talked about founders and the key of it.
I always refer to investing the jockey at the horse.
So what are some of those qualities that you're looking
for specifically that you turn to Chris and say, you
know what, we have to back this guy, Jason, He's
really got it.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
What are those things look like?
Speaker 5 (34:54):
One that's always the easiest is like looking at the
person's like track record, right, being able to see things
that they've done in the past. Is this their second
or third time doing something? What have their other companies
look like? And then it's also the team around them
and how the team I think acts with that founder.
Like I like being able to see how the team
(35:15):
around the founder it feels. How are they like on
the call when I'm having a meeting with all of them,
are they people that seem like they want to ride
and die for this founder? Like? Is this a place
where people are going to, you know, go to the
trenches for each other or is it a place that
you can see, man, you guys are like just holding
together here? You know what I mean, Like one small
(35:35):
little separation or one off put comment and this whole
thing can come crumbling down. Right, So I think it's
really important to go and look past not only how
the founder cares about, you know, business or when they're
looking at you know, what school do they go to
or anything, but how are they interacting with the employees
and their partners and the people that they're working with.
Because the last thing you want is to invest into
a company that ends up having a partner feud and
(35:58):
you don't want to be in that. So I think
that's really important to me. But yeah, I think those
are those are the ones that I feel like I
find myself looking at the most when I'm in those meetings.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
And so, you know, as we look at the media landscape,
obviously we've talked a lot about social media. You said
earlier something I think really important, which is you're trying
to bridge all of the media together. You've done some
work with Amazon. How does that come about? And what
is it about Amazon that appealed to you and how
does that work?
Speaker 5 (36:29):
I think amazon Is mission is quite similar to mine
with what they're doing with Prime Video, bringing in Thursday
night football in the unscripted and scripted content that they're
bringing into Prime Video. So for me, it's I'm able
to go to a home that has the same mission
and I feel like, Okay, we're both now working together
(36:52):
in a more in a better fashion to both complete
our goals. I'm able to go to Amazon and I'm
able to get plugged in with athletes, and I'm able
to get plugged in with the NFL, and I'm able
to do those things that I want to do on
the sports side. But then as well, I'm able to
bring in my scripted content. I'm able to bring in
my unscripted content to a home where they're able to
kind of take everything I have. So for me, it
(37:13):
was just it was a it was a perfect like relationship.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
So given that we're sitting here, you know, with the
guy who used to play baseball, you obviously have a
lot of insights into the sports world, like who were
the present company excluded? Because he doesn't need to he
doesn't need the attention. I mean, who are the athletes
who pay attention to in terms of their social following,
in terms of you know, their sophistication when it comes
(37:38):
to building an audience.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
Yeah, yeah, I think jenen Brunson's done a good job
with his podcast. I think them opening that up and
believing in it after a rough start, Like they opened
that podcast and they went oh and four right after
their team lost the next four games right after doing
that podcast, so people were on them pretty heavy, like
don't do this anymore. Stop the podcast, like this isn't working,
(37:59):
and it's just one of those like unfortunate coincidences I think,
where you know they're doing the podcast and they start
to lose, so then you know, fans aren't gonna be
happy about that. They're like, oh, what you're You're not
able to practically do the podcast, when in all reality,
you know they're super patience. Everybody knows that they're just
like they're laid. So they got a tough, tough go
(38:20):
at the beginning, but they kept with it and I
think it's an really enjoyable watch and I do like
what they're doing with that. Paul Rabel is somebody that
has done a great job. It isn't obviously playing right now,
but a former la crosse athlete that's been able to
pivot and build an entire empire, and he has his
stuff with the PLO. He's working on a movie right now.
(38:42):
Like the things he's been able to pivot towards and do,
I've always found really impressive in respect and grew up
watching him and calling him the million dollar Man, the
first guy to make a million dollars from lacrosse, Like
that was always a huge thing for us as kids
when we wanted to go and become professional cross players,
because it was like, oh my gosh, he was able
to do it and he didn't need to also go
(39:04):
be a teacher or do something else as well. This
is crazy. So yeah, I think those are a couple
of guys that I look at a lot. I'm hoping
to see more and more in the NHL of guys
starting to come out. Like I did a video with
Mitch Marner and a couple other guys. Dean Dawkins was
one of them and then a cross player as well,
And when we did that video, it was great to
(39:24):
see like Mitch Marner just being himself on camera and
joking around and having that and like, you don't get
to see that from NHL guys ever, Like McDavid doesn't
even have a social media right and he's like the
number one guy in the league. So that becomes a
massive problem for a league when like your best players
don't even care to post. Yeah. Right, So for me,
I want to see, like I want to see Austin
(39:46):
Matthews giving his take on situations in the NHL. I
want to see those guys getting to talk more. Like
for me, that would be awesome.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Well, because it's interesting, you know your point earlier about
the NFL sort of coming on strong. The NBA was
on that corner for a long time, you know, I mean,
you saw, you know, such a player driven league, and
the NFL, as it often does, it's like, okay, we
got this now, I mean, and you really have seen
just a really concerted effort on the parts of teams
(40:16):
and the parts of players to just get out there more.
It's fascinating that it's happening.
Speaker 5 (40:21):
Even from like them having like the postgame interviews, like
the way they joke around in the postgame interviews and
they have fun sometimes in them. You know, Like that's
something that I see in the NBA and I see
in the NFL that I don't see in the NHL whatsoever.
Like guys are up there and they might have just
had the best performance of all time and scored like
(40:41):
four goals and had two assists, and they'll be like,
so like talk about it, and the guy will be like, yeah, no,
I just coaches in the team and that's really why
I was able to do that, doing it for the boy.
And it's like, no, dude, you did it. You had
four goals and two assists. You did everything toeah like
have a little like yeah, no, I'm that guy. Like
people want to see that a little bit, right, and
they don't. That's just not how you're taught to play,
(41:03):
like dressing rooms from when you're three years old. It's
always like, no, it's the team, it's the team. It's
the team.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
That's no way.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
That sounds exactly like major League Baseball, so similar to
base I mean, I remember Josh's a rookie, Like I
couldn't even go back to the back of the plane
to use the restroom and you're supposed to get there
early face in the locker room, if you know. Goose
Gossage was awesome, but he was like twice my age.
I was eighteen, he was forty four.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
I was so.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Scared of him.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
Yeah right, and yes sir, yes, And then you look
back and you know things are starting to change.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
But I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
I mean, NFL, NBA, they're a lot more pop culture
and they're.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Like, yeah, I'm that guy.
Speaker 5 (41:39):
Yeah, we would never.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Be able to say that in baseball.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
No, I do have a question about because Jason's mentioned
a few times the Josh Richards Empire, and I'm always
fascinated by entrepreneur's vision. So if you think about your
vision for the next seven to ten years, I'm trying
to think about what is a great example. Are you
thinking about your empire that looks a little bit like
Ryan Secret with a blend of Mark Wahlberg with a
(42:02):
splash of Sequoia capital tell us what the vision looks like.
Speaker 5 (42:06):
Yeah, I mean I think you did a pretty good
job there, and that sounds like a pretty great next
for me. But no, I think, yeah, I've always looked
at it as I think Mark Wahlberg is the example
that I've I've used a lot. Just his ability to
be in so many different fields, I think, to me
is something I always have enjoyed. I've never been somebody
(42:29):
that just wants to kind of, you know, stick to
one thing and do that one thing and that.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
That be it.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
So I really hope in the next five to seven
were able to grow at Crosscheck and be at the
forefront of creating content for gen Z and scripted and unscripted.
I really hope to continue getting to not only be
a part of content, but get more and more into
acting and scripted content myself and being in front of
the camera. So I think mark for me is definitely
that I guess goal or kind of you know, path
(42:57):
that I would really like to to go down.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
You know who I see a lot of Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
I will take that, yeah, every single.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Day, especially because like when you because when you talk
to Ryan, I mean he does such an amazing job
of talking about essentially like putting it on his back, right,
I mean with Deadpool being the example, right, I mean
that's a movie that was essentially, as he tells it,
kind of left for dead. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (43:23):
I mean, do you know that he leaked the first
the first trailer piece that was him?
Speaker 3 (43:28):
It was that smart.
Speaker 5 (43:29):
He I was so smart And.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
That's what got it.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
Yeah, That's what really got it done. Is like they
had this little test shoot they had done and it
somehow got leaked and no one knows, and like Ryan
was able to leak and it got so much fan
attention that they were like, we have to do this,
we have to And that was him believing in himself
and taking a risk and then look how it paid off.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Right, And I believe the next part of that story
is they shoot the movie and then he literally walks
off the set in the suit and takes the suit
home because he knows they're not going to market it
the way that he wants it to be marketed, and
he does all these like gorilla videos that then markets
the markets the movie. I mean, it's also this this
(44:14):
idea of working with brands in an authentic way, because
that's what Maximum Effort has done so much of. And
when I hear you talk about what you and Chris
are doing, that sort of approach seems very So. You know,
you're going to be a team owner, You're gonna have
a billion dollars franchises. Yeah right, We're going to end
(44:39):
this as we do, with a rapid fire, so we'll
bounce it back and forth. What's one word to describe
your deal making style?
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Proactive?
Speaker 3 (44:47):
What's more important your instincts or data instincts?
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Who's your dream deal making partner I'm.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
Gonna go Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Ah nice.
Speaker 4 (44:56):
What's the best piece of advice you ever received on
deal making or business?
Speaker 5 (45:00):
Can I give two insertions? I think one being the
invest in the founder and not necessarily the product. And
then two, when you're creating a company or you're gonna
be investing, or you're dealing with someone that's going to
be a long term partner and you're making that decision
on who that partner is going to be. I think
it's really really important to know that's going to be
(45:23):
someone that you can go to the trenches with, that
you wake up in the morning and you're really excited
to get to work with this person, because if not,
it's not gonna be fun, it's not gonna feel great,
it's gonna be such a tedious thing, and you're never
gonna be able to put forth your best effort.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
What's the worst advice you've ever been given?
Speaker 5 (45:41):
There were people on the business side that I told
me I should step away from content and focus more
on the entrepreneurial side, and I think that's probably the
silliest thing that has ever been said to me.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
What is your hype song before a big meeting or negotiation.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
Oh the song I was listening to on the way
year was Sunday Morning by Maroon five, So I'll go
with that.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
All right.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
You can only watch one sport for the rest of
your life. Which one is it?
Speaker 5 (46:07):
Gosh, this is so hard.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Test to your Canadian roots.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
I know.
Speaker 5 (46:13):
And if it was live, I go hockey and it's
not even close. If it's live, it's hockey and it's
not even close. And on TV TV.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Football, Okay, what team do you want to see win
a championship more than any male?
Speaker 5 (46:27):
Mayple leaves so badly. Please, just in my lifetime, make
it pass for life. Please.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
One fun fact about you that some of your colleagues
will be surprised that you have.
Speaker 5 (46:41):
I did dance growing up. I don't think people would
expect that because I'm a terrible dancer. But I did
do hip hop dance for like a year growing up.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Do you want to show us a little I don't think.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
I think I just could. I think I could just
do the worm when I was younger, so I thought
I was going to be a really good dancer and
it did not translate whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
So all right, well, this has been really Thank you
for doing this.
Speaker 5 (47:01):
No, Thank you guys for having me.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.
Our producers are Anamazarakus, Stacey Wong, and Lizzie Phillip. Original
music and engineering by Blake Maples. Our managing editor is
David E. Ravella. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly, Brendan
(47:30):
Francis Newnham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Kyle Kramer, Andrew Barden,
Kelly Laferrier, and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our head
of podcasts, additional support from Rachel Carnivali and Elena sos Angeles.
Joshua Devaux is our director of photography. Rubob Shakir is
(47:52):
our creative director. Art direction is from Jacqueline Kessler. Casting
by Julia Manns. Our associate producer is Natasha Camera operation
by Stephen Neil and Linnea Jolson. Our associate producer is
Natasha Abilard. Our gaffer is Kelly Porterfield, and our grip
is Justin Birch. Alex Diacanis is our video editor. Listen
(48:16):
to the deal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you
get your podcasts. You can also tune into the video
Companion on Bloomberg Originals and on Bloomberg TV. Thanks for listening.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com