July 7, 2025 • 45 mins
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In Episode 91 of Scoreboard, Chris Titley chats with Stuart Randall, Managing Editor Digital, Video, Audio and Social at ESPN Australia about what it really takes to build and retain attention in today’s sports media landscape.
Stuart shares how ESPN shifted from a one-size-fits-all approach to platform-native content, why creative teams need to act like publishers, and how data—and instinct—drive decisions across billions of views.
We dive into audience trends, building for under 35s, balancing emotion with timing, and how the right post at the right time still beats high production value every day of the week.
Whether it’s a meme, a long-form clip, or a live reaction, this episode is a snapshot of how modern sports content is made—and where it's going next.
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🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Scoreboardpodcast
📩 Partnerships: chris@scoreboardpodcast.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
From the arena to the front office, this is Scoreboard.
I'm Chris Titley and each episode brings you stories from
the game of sport, when mindset,money and meaning shape what
comes next. Athletes, coaches, owners and
business leaders unpack the moments that matter because the
Scoreboard isn't just about winning, it's about life beyond
the game. This episode is powered by
Swiftx, Australia's top rated crypto exchange and proudly
(00:23):
homegrown, just like many of theathletes and business leaders we
feature on Scoreboard. Now let's get to today, today's
episode. Hi, it's Chris Titley here.
And on today's episode of Scoreboard the podcast, I'm
joined by Stuart Randall, Managing Editor, digital video,
audio and Social of ESPN Australia.
Stuart, great to have you on thepodcast.
Hi Chris, thanks for having me. Delighted to be here.
(00:45):
Stuart, I've been looking forward to to this podcast only
a number of reasons, but the main reason is I've talked a lot
about the way sport is being consumed and the way sport is
being, I suppose from a social media point of view, not when I
was growing up was nothing in and around that.
But I'm keen to hear your thoughts first up about how the
landscape is changing through social media and how people
(01:08):
consume sport differently. Wow, it's that That's a very,
very short question for a very big answer.
I think. I mean, the landscape has
changed so much over the last few years.
You know, I think back to even doing these things like doing
podcasts remotely. I'm thinking about to pre COVID
when I first joined ESPN in 2018, how we did things and how
(01:30):
different the landscape was then.
And I think the it's a real democratisation of technology
has completely changed everything now in in our
industry. And it's it's created
opportunities, it's created challenges.
It's really levelled the playingfield where your big brands like
ourselves or Fox Sports or or your free to end networks and
(01:53):
their digital handles are playing in the same space as
individual creators, as individual podcasters, as you
know, a Dan does footy or you know, like at a bar or things
like that. Scoreboard, of course, yeah.
Of course. Yeah, Scoreboard of course all
have the opportunity and all have the chance to reach as many
people and in and in many cases more people than than some of
(02:14):
the big brands simply because ofthis democratisation of, of
tech. I was thinking, I was thinking
over the weekend around how things have changed in my time
in the industry. And I think the, the phone is,
is the biggest change that we'vewe've possibly had.
And you know, when I started working 25 plus years ago, I
took a plastic handset to a press box in England to plug in
(02:36):
and then read out copy to someone sitting in an office.
And nowadays I could take my phone and I could live stream
the game that I'm watching in front of me and I could go live
with my own opinion straight after the game.
Or I could use an AI tool to transcribe the coach's interview
afterwards. And the the change we've had in
such a small amount of time is quite incredible.
(02:57):
And it's, it has just opened theworld of possibilities for any
person to become a sports content creator in, in this
instance. And it's, it's exciting.
It's, it's kind of scary, but it's, it's a really interesting
world to play in at the moment. I'd, I'd love to go back to
those days in the Uki spent a bit of time in the Uki remember
the I remember the, the BlackBerry.
Remember the BlackBerry? I do, yes.
(03:18):
Yeah, that was sort of around sort of O five O 620 odd years
ago. And I really aspired to have a
BlackBerry at some point in timein my life.
But back then it was what everyone, everyone did.
It was like email on your phone.It was a real out of here.
It's a real status symbol, the BlackBerry for a while.
It sure was. And your time in the UK, you
know, with with the, you know, the sport over there, the
Premier League, all these big deals that were going on sort
(03:40):
of, you know, fork sort of shapethe next 20 years of sport.
You want to go back to those that era and talk about a little
bit of some of the learnings that you you you came across at
the time. Yeah, sure.
Like I I'm born in the UK and and lived the 1st 28 years of my
life there before I I moved to Australia.
So my original media career was there and I, I always wanted to
be a journalist when I was growing up.
(04:02):
I always wanted to work in sport.
Once I realised I wouldn't be able to play for the England
football team, I realised that Iwould have to be there in
another capacity. So I wanted to be a writer, I
wanted to be a journalist. And I, I, I went to university
and studied journalism and I washalfway through and realised I
actually just want to be doing this.
I want to be at games. So I actually dropped out of uni
at that point and worked in the supermarket Monday to Friday and
(04:26):
managed to get a job writing 152hundred word match reports for
a, for a Sports News agency in London in the 199899 season.
And they would send me to, you know, second division football
matches or Premiership Rugby matches.
And I would take my phone in my bag and get on the train and get
off and plug it in at the the press box and write out in, in
(04:50):
pen and paper my 150 words. Then dictate it down the down
the phone to a copytaker. And I did that for a year and it
was a great learning. You learnt how to write tight,
quick, accurate copy because youhad to always file on the
whistle. There was no spell cheques or
anything like that. I didn't have laptop or, or a
phone to be able to do these things for me.
(05:10):
And then eventually I, I kind ofpivoted at the end of that.
I needed a full time job. I couldn't keep working on the
meat and fish counter at my local supermarket Monday to
Friday. So I got a job at ATV station as
a, as a runner, someone whose job was to get coffee and
arrays, VHS tapes and peel stickers off things and things
like that. And gradually kind of works my
(05:32):
way through the ranks there to become a producer and director.
And then finally ended up at SkySports working on the on the
Premier League there, which was the the biggest learning ground
of all. I guess it was a very tough
place to work at the time and it's probably in in their
heyday, 2004 to 2006. I was there and it was a tough
school, but you learnt so much about the standards and quality
(05:55):
of your work and accountability as well I guess, and that really
held me in good stead for the rest of my career.
And in terms of the the blurriness of the lines between
sport, you know, as a job as a profession and enjoying sport
and then sport as a business, how have you managed that
through your career? Because you love it.
(06:15):
You never turn off, which is probably the hardest thing.
Yeah, I, I think about this weekend.
I've, you know, I've, I've been a bit sick last week, but still
at home doing some work things. And then you try to switch off
for the weekend. And I'm sitting there watching
the West Tigers game yesterday. Or yeah, flicking over to the
Wallabies. Games.
By the way, the West Tigers gameis a cracking game of foot.
(06:37):
I mean, I mean, we're back. I'm a Tigers fan, a long
suffering Tigers fan. So we are back, baby.
Yeah. But that's the thing.
You, you end up you, you never really fully switched off when
your work is also your passion. So it's that double edged sword
that it's, it's awesome. It's absolutely awesome that I
work in this field that I I justlove so much and has been part
(07:02):
of my life since I was a kid. I've always loved sports.
Soccer was being English. Soccer was my my big one.
But I've been here for nearly 20years and I love AFL and NRL and
and everything else that that comes with it.
But it is, it is a challenge sometimes to look at things
slightly dispassionately and notcontinually critique.
(07:23):
When I worked in television, I was, I was a lot worse.
So I was executive producer at SBS for 12 years and I would
always be looking at things through the broadcast lens and
go, why did they do that? Why did that bit of music look
at that mistake? And you know, my, my partner
would always say to me, why didn't you just sit and enjoy
it? Like, well, I just, I'm, I'm
looking at it. I'm just, you know, I'm just
(07:44):
seeing why they did that. So I'm, as I get older, I try to
remove myself a little bit more,but it's, it is hard sometimes
because it's such a, you know, you're always thinking about it.
I'll listen to a podcast and it'll be a sports business pod
or it'll be, you know, the Bill Simmons pod talking about NBA.
And it's not really about like it's not really about that kind
(08:04):
of lean back experience. I'm still kind of leaning
forward a little bit when I'm listening to these things or
watching something, but I am trying to get a little bit
better. You mentioned before about the
sort of democratisation of technology and, and, and the
information available for, for content creators, etcetera.
Do you think there's a bit of content overload, like you don't
(08:25):
know where to start or don't know where to begin and you
could just sit there all day 24/7 listening to content and
not do anything? There, there is we, there is an
absolute flood of it. But the, the thing that amazes
me and I'll give a little case study from, from what we've done
at ESPN is when, when I joined there in 2018, one of my roles
was to increase our presence in local sports.
(08:45):
You know, we are known for beingUS sports broadcaster, NBANFL,
etcetera. And we wanted to make a bit more
of an impression in, in local codes.
So we, we've put a lot of effortand a lot of time and resource
into doing AFL content. And we've taken it from a user
base maybe of 300,000 users consuming AFL content in 2019 to
(09:08):
about two and a half million now.
So we've we've done a really good job of that.
But I was amazed thinking why are people consuming AFL content
on ESPN when there's so much outthere and you realise that there
is such a voracious appetite forthat content.
You realise that no matter how much is created, people are
still consuming it. And it is going back to the pole
point around phones, it's peopledon't switch off.
(09:31):
You know, I've talked about not switching off and I'm kind of in
the industry. People who are just consumers
don't switch off either. They are second screening while
they're watching the game on TV or the Powerball.
They're on their commute. You know the old days of picking
up MX or even a standard in London when you're on the on the
train or on the bus is completely gone.
Everyone's on their phone, everyone's looking at what
(09:51):
happened last night. Everyone's reading something or
listening to something or listening to something and
reading something at the same time.
So there is so much content out there and it's really hard to
cut through. But on the flip side, people
just seem to want more and more and more, which from our
perspective, you've got to thinkhow we, how do we try to stand
out in, in the crowd? How do we try to make our voice
(10:12):
heard? And at the same time, you're the
best of the algorithms of the ofthe tech companies.
So it's, it's a really challenging space.
But I think like I said before, it it's an exciting one because
you have opportunity to try things.
And yeah, I, I go back to my previous one on TV, you try
something on TV and it fails andit, it's a bit tougher to do to,
(10:35):
to get back from that position. If you have a show cancelled, or
you know a show has terrible ratings, if you put a piece of
content up on the Internet that doesn't go particularly well,
you just do another 1-10 minuteslater and try and make it
better. Yeah, No, you touched on ESPN
there in terms of the the brain in Australia, people thinking
America and then you're startingto do AFL content.
(10:56):
How have you gone about educating the the user base, the
the the consumer out there goingthat ESPN does a bit more than
just American sport? It's, it's one of the challenges
we've got. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a
good position that we're in because we're so known for
something and in a time where brand recognition is, is quite
hard for people and there's a lot of turbulence in the market,
(11:17):
I think to be known for something is, is a real
positive. I've always said that we're,
we're big in niche sports and niche in big in this country.
So we do, you know, we're, we'rethe biggest player that there is
in basketball and NFL and you know, UFC is one of our big
things now as well, but we're trying to get a foothold in the
sports that matter to people in this country, AFLNRL, cricket,
(11:40):
etcetera. One of the advantages we have is
we own footy tips. So we actually have an audience
there of, you know, one and a half million tippers on local
sport. So we've really been trying to
tap into that. We've been trying to educate
people that, you know, when, when you're doing your tips, we
we offer them more content in the app there.
You know, if you'd like to, you'd like to be smarter about
(12:01):
how you tip and read this article or watch this video or
listen to the footy tips podcast.
All these, all these little things, these little Nuggets
that we're trying to drop to tryand entice people to spend a bit
more time with us, to engage with us a little bit more, to
click on one more link. And we've been trying to do
that. And then we've, we've tried to
say this position in local sports where, you know, we're
(12:22):
not beholden to anybody. We don't have rights for
anything. We, you know, we don't really
have official formal relationships with governing
bodies or other media groups. So we can just be honest about
things. We can just say say them as they
are. So we tried to do that.
We tried to take some of that ESPN ethos of storytelling and
almost like a frankness in the way we cover a sport and bring
(12:44):
that into AFL. And to a degree NRLAFL has been
a focus more recently. And like I say, we've had some
real success with that. We've got a couple of podcasts
on the go now. We just brought Mason Cops on
board to do a YouTube first showfor us as well and we've managed
to make some real inroads into transforming some of that footy
(13:04):
Tips audience into regular ESPN users, which has been really
good. You're managing it at a digital
video, audio and social. There's a few buckets there.
How have you gone about sort of focusing on those buckets and
ones better than the other and whatnot and time allocation
etcetera? How's your brain thinking about
that? Well, I think content is
(13:25):
probably the word about, it's funny, we're in an, in an
industry where we're still very siloed in a way.
We look at things sometimes. And I'm talking broadly here,
not not necessarily at ESPN, butvery broadly.
We think this is TV, this is digital, this is social, this is
video. And in my mind, it's, it's all
just content. It's the, the, the
(13:47):
differentiation is the platform you're watching it or listening
to it on, but it is all content.And so you what it's just about
tailoring the right piece of content to the right audience on
the right platform at the right time.
You can have the best, best possible piece of content.
And you think this is done, Thisis done an absolutely pop when
we put this on social and it just doesn't.
(14:09):
And there could be 1,000,000 reasons for that.
It could be the algorithm, it could be the time of day.
It could be somebody else put something similar just
beforehand and they got pushed up.
You just a lot of the time you just don't know.
I don't think anyone who says they know how the algorithms
work and you know that this doing the content in this way
will definitely work. Is, is, is lying really?
Because no one really does know.We're all, we're all learning at
(14:32):
this. We're all still trying to find
our way and we're all still making mistakes.
And I, I think that's one of thebest things you can do is you
can try things and you can, you can fail and the failure isn't
necessarily a bad thing. It's just another way to learn
and another way to get some experience in thinking right.
That didn't work. So let's try it somewhere else
(14:55):
or in a different way or at a different time.
When I, I think when I, when I started, we, the industry in
general, had a feeling of we don't take this piece of
content, we don't put it on television and then we're going
to put it on the Internet and then we're going to put it on
social. And it was the same piece of
content unchanged. It was cut in the same way, just
looked exactly the same. And that one size fits all
(15:18):
approach is still being done in in some places, I think and it
just doesn't work. The audience is too smart for
that. The algorithms are too, too
intelligent for that as well. So it's there isn't one bucket
that's more important than the other.
From a from a content perspective or engagement
perspective. Obviously there's revenues
attached in different places which which can dictate the
(15:39):
priorities you give sometimes, but it's all about forming a
connection with the audience. You can have the best production
values, you can have the best intentions of how you want a
piece, but if it doesn't connect, if it doesn't emote, if
it doesn't make the person on their phone feel something,
there's no real point in in whatyou've done and.
(16:01):
And to to my a question now around you've got sport, let's
call it your basketball, and then you've got various leagues
underneath the basketball, you know, as an example, the NBA and
then the NBL. And then within that you've got
the teams and then within that you've got the players and
they're all producing content. Again, they're all kind of like
showcasing different types of content around the plays.
(16:24):
How does ESPN work with that, I suppose and and they're doing
something and you go, oh, actually we're going to do that
or vice versa. And how does it all play in?
Well, I think we have, you know,we have partnerships with with
certain competitions with the NBAWNBANBLWNBL and yeah, we want
to work with them when we can, but also there has to be a
(16:47):
little bit of a church in state thing there as well.
Sometimes we don't have to publish something that's not
going to be that they may not like or it's a controversial
take or things like that. And we are a news organisation
ultimately at our heart and in our in our ethos from a history
of ESPN. So we have to approach that in a
(17:08):
quite an even handed way in terms of the the amount of
content that's out there and thedifferent types of content
between them. We, we do see ourselves a little
bit as that kind of one stop shop because we know that, you
know, fandom is not it, It's notsiloed.
Fans aren't generally just Golden State Warriors and
(17:29):
nothing else matters in their life.
We know that there is in Australia with I think we did
some studies a couple of years ago that before COVID, the
average person was interested inabout 4.6 different leagues or
teams around the world. In 2023, that had gone up to
7.8. So there's been an explosion of
(17:50):
interest in sports and leagues and competitions around the
world. This environment we're in where
you can basically watch any competition in the world at any
time on your phone means that suddenly people are interested.
And so that puts us in a really strong position.
I think we've got a yeah. I, I, I personally think a best
in class app in terms of live scores and news.
(18:12):
And if you are a fan of, say, the New York Yankees, The Jets,
Collingwood and Melbourne Storm,we can give you pretty much all
you need on all those teams in one spot.
And, and I think that's that's acase for so many of the
competitions that we look after and so much of the sport that we
(18:34):
do. We focus very much on the sports
and the leagues and the competitions that the kind of
younger fanbase are interested in.
We're lucky we have a young audience with ESPN and we really
focus on that and we really try to push as much content that
appeals to that kind of demographic.
(18:54):
And we know that people will go to their athlete podcast or
they'll go to the the club sites.
But kind of going back to the points before there is so much
content and there's so much appetite for content that people
will still come to us. And we've we've seen the
evidence of that. We've continually growing our
audience on and off platform over the last three or four
years. You talked about demographics
(19:16):
there and you talked about your audience.
How do you kind of get that? Is that through the the login to
to register, just follow teams, etcetera, Because obviously on
platforms some of these big techcompanies may not want to share
that data or or do they? Yeah.
Well, well, we have certain analytics tools in house which
which give us that data, particularly around social
(19:38):
media. We can see very granular details
around who our social media audience is, where they're from,
what their age is, what they're interested in.
And there's other there's other tools that we can use which give
us a really good insight into that.
And then we use focus groups as well around these things.
And we do regular surveys and check insurance to see see kind
(19:59):
of the health of our brand, I guess.
And we've got, you know, we knowthat the sports that we cover
are appealing. To to the younger, to a younger
demographic in this country, basketball is, you know, it's
the fastest growing participation sport, it's the
second biggest in the country and we are the Homer hoops in
Australia. So we know that that is a really
(20:20):
good position to be in and a really strong position and a
strong foundation for us to growin.
We know the NFL is, you know, Super Bowl day, I think, Andrew
Webster said in the Sydney Morning Herald a few years ago.
Super Bowl is now the young person's Melbourne Cup day.
Everyone takes a sickie, everyone's off, everyone goes to
the pub at 10 in the morning. On a Monday morning.
On a Monday morning, yes. And we ran a Super Bowl sickie
(20:43):
campaign for the last two years,which Stephen A Smith did for
us. So there's a real, that's where
I think we're we've we've got quite a strong position that we
we have this young audience and we're continuing to serve them
this content. And the beauty of something like
the NBA and basketball is it never stops.
You know, we are here three weeks after 2, two and a bit
(21:07):
weeks up game seven in the Finals and we went straight into
draught and we went straight into Kevin Durant being traded.
And the trades, the draught and every day and logs on goes what
happened last. Oh, log on to yes, I'm giving
you a plug here. Log on to ESPN to check out what
trades have been happening. Exactly.
And we're in this, we're in this365 day a year NBA economy,
summer league games started yesterday.
(21:27):
And I'm thinking this is ridiculous.
That even caught me by surprise.So I think are we already into
summer league straight away? And you've got Aussies playing
in summer league. And that's, that's the other
part of this. There are the NBA is so
aspirational for for Australians.
I think we've had #1 draught picks.
You know, we've had people go, we've had a number of lottery
picks. We had a number of NBA
champions. Got another one this year.
(21:50):
There are, and you see the pathway from the NBL through to
the NBA. And I think that recognition, I
think that Aussies on the big stage is still something that
the people here really like and I really kind of appreciate.
And I think it's a little bit like Premier League soccer
probably was in the 90s here when you had Carrie Kuehl and
(22:11):
Mark Paduka. There's almost a sense of pride
in following those competitions because like the Aussies doing
well, Tim. Yeah, exactly.
And I think I think you're now getting a little bit of that
with US sports. Luke Longley, obviously the
Trailblazer initially, but you see what Dyson Daniels did last
season, you see Josh Giddy having a resurgence in Chicago
and you see Aussies going through the draught.
(22:34):
And we had four Aussies picked in the second round this year.
So there is definitely, it's that continual interest.
And it's that thread between these kids that were playing at
the NBA, on the NBL, at John Kane Arena and on a Friday
night. You watch them on ESPN, you see
them in the draught, then you see them in Summer League, then
you'll see them eventually made their NBA debuts.
So we're able to tell a story from the star all the way
(22:57):
through to almost to its completion.
And yeah, I think it's a pretty cool opportunity we have around
some of those sports. When it comes to, you know, we
talk about the Australian consumption of, of US based
sports that what, where's that trend been?
And do you think you know the, the, the democratisation, the,
OR the access I suppose to, to follow teams and follow leagues
(23:18):
over in the US has sort of changed grassroots sport
participation somewhat? I think it has and I, you can
see that, you know, my, my daughter played basketball here
in Sydney and there were times when games will be cancelled
because they couldn't find a court because there's so much
(23:39):
interest and there's so many people playing it.
I think the beauty of something like basketball is that it's a
little bit like soccer. You, you need the ball and
that's about it. You can kind of do it anywhere.
And that's it is such a simple sport to play.
And in a world where I think parents are starting to get
concerned around the impacts of,you know, high contact sports
(24:02):
like like rugby, both rugby codes like AFL, when you talk
about concussions. And you'll see more and more
kids being guided into playing different sports like
basketball, like soccer. And you see as well, the other
aspect of it is the culture. They love wearing basketball
jerseys. You know, they love wearing the
Jordans, is that there's a wholeculture around is that
(24:24):
intersection between sport and culture that the basketball and
the NBA in particular does so well?
And you see music as well is part of this.
And it's the people don't reallysupport in being basketball
anyway. They're not really fine in teams
anymore. They're just following their
stars. They're following LeBron,
they're following, you know, KD,they're following the next
(24:44):
generation will be Shay. It'll be yeah, all these players
that they, they just love and they'll get their jersey and
then when Luca moves, they'll get their their new Luca jersey.
It's that fandom that is createdthrough through clips on TikTok,
through dunks they see on Instagram.
They we know that they're not we're not getting 15 year olds
(25:05):
coming out and seeing them watching a whole NBA game.
That's you know, we we understand that, but as long as
they're consuming the NBA via, you know, attic top moments of
of Luca doing something or, you know, they're they're clicking
on the alert that shams has justdone at Durant's part of a 17
trade and things like that. We know that there is such an
industry around the NBA now thatit's really captivating to
(25:27):
younger people. And that's and that's
translating itself in into how they actually want to play the
sport themselves. They want to wear the jersey and
they want to try the three pointCurry shot from the corner or
they want to go and do a big LeBron dunk or something like
that. It is.
It's a very aspirational kind ofsport and it's one that can be
almost easily translated into the actual game itself.
(25:49):
You mentioned about following players.
The the access that people have to the players is a lot
different. When we were growing up, we'll
sort of watch them on TV and youmight glimpse them on the street
sometimes and you may even, you know, get an autograph.
Nowadays you can follow people behind the scenes on social
media and see that they're normal human beings, broadly
speaking, that they go to the the coffee shop or they're in
(26:09):
the gym, etcetera. The connection, as you talked
about previously, between a regular punter watching sport
and and an athlete is closer than ever, I think.
Is it getting closer and closer and closer?
And what do you think is the future of, I suppose a
relationship between a fan and Aand a player?
It is. It is definitely getting closer.
(26:30):
My slight concern is when it crosses the lines, I mean, you
see the stories of the, what some people say in DMS to
players, you know, a player misses a kick at the end of the
footy game and the abuse they'rereceiving DMS.
And I think there may be a pointwhere it contracts a little bit
and players are a little bit more guarded about what they do.
(26:50):
Like if you lose again, they maynot come on, actually post
something. And I, I think that would be a
very bad place for us to get into.
But it's probably emblematic of the way certain aspects of
social media have gone in society in general, where it
seems to be around extremes a little bit.
So I, I really hope that that doesn't happen.
It doesn't discourage athletes from being honest.
(27:11):
You know, we would in the media,we'd love athletes being honest.
We, we continually get the sanitised version of them,
official media opportunities. And you only, you often only get
the real version of them from their own social media channels.
And you see the amount of stories that are written by
certain outlets just basically looking at some of the social
media feed. So I really hope that we don't
(27:34):
get to the point where people close up too much because I
think there's too much of that. There's too much sanitised, too
much sanitised appearances from athletes in the media,
particularly in this country. I, I look at America as being
very different. I think they're a lot more raw,
they're a lot more honest. And there don't seem to be quite
as many guide ropes, I think around them in in NBA and NFL in
(27:57):
particular. Whereas I look at here and you
see, you know, Jack Guineven does a celebration in a game and
he's criticised by all and sundry.
And there has to be an apology. Or, you know, the Swans have to
come out and do an apology because somebody, you know, did
an action on the field or said something after a game or did a
post. And I think we need to let
people be people and we need to let people have a personality.
(28:20):
Because if the game just becomesthis vanilla, all we all, all
that people ever see is, you know, 18 robots going around in
different colours for each footyteam, what's the point?
It's about connection. As I said, it's about emotion.
It's about feeling something. And you know, we shouldn't
prevent people from being the people they are just because
(28:41):
they happen to be playing for a footy club.
Obviously there's boundaries on,on what you should say and, and
decency and respect and things like that.
But if somebody is just doing a celebration like a Jack in them
and then yeah, let them go for it.
Yeah, leads me to the next question around the types of
content that resonates well every now and then.
(29:03):
And there's might be a blurry ground that someone does
something controversial as opposed to an amazing goal,
which I'm sure, or amazing play,which I'm sure will get some
good likes and good shares, etcetera.
But then you maybe someone does something funny or maybe someone
does a little bit controversial,or maybe there's the the big
beef that happens and everyone goes, oh mate, check this out.
For instance, what are you, how do you how do you see that and
(29:25):
some data and going actually just the the play of the day
doesn't make it anymore. It's, it's funny the things that
work and the things that don't work.
Like I think the biggest clip that we've done on TikTok this
year and we've had, we're an amazing year on TikTok.
We've done over like 100 millionviews for our channel.
We did a knockout from AUFC Fight Night in Shanghai in a
(29:49):
women's flyweight fight and it did something like 12 million
views just for that clip. And it was, it wasn't like it
was a major fight. It wasn't a world title fight.
It was somewhere off the undercard.
And it wasn't even the most spectacular knockout.
But it it was, there was just something about it that
resonated and it just went crazy.
And I think we we got a bit fortunate that there weren't
(30:09):
many other people put in the same content out at the same
time. So our one kind of caught fire a
little bit. We've had some good success.
We've just been showing the Australia W Indies series on on
Disney Plus this last week and ahalf and we've had some really
good success out of out of some clips from that as well,
(30:30):
particularly a lot of the controversial ones when the
third umpires involved. What was this?
And we positioned it as asking the question, you know, was this
out? And we've given people the
opportunity. We're actually, yeah, we and
it's not engagement for engagement's sake if this is a
legitimate part of something that happened in the game.
But all we're doing is saying, what do you think?
(30:52):
And by giving people the opportunity, by actually opening
the door, people actually do want to give an opinion.
Then we did a clip from AI thinkit was from a like a country
footy game and it's a ridiculousmark a couple of weeks ago and
that went crazy and the same thing we're like, is this mark
of the year or is this better than so and so's mark in the
AFL? And again, it opened the door
(31:13):
for people to just have an opinion and people love to put
their own opinion forward these days.
And there's a million platforms where you can do that.
I mean, we have a you look at ESPN in the US is all about
opinions a lot of the time now Stephen A Smith and Pat McPhee
and all all the shows we have, it may have felt.
Common. To take.
Etcetera, hot water with a couple of clubs as well this
(31:34):
year, yeah. There is, yes, there is.
Maybe maybe similar trying to godown a similar path a little bit
there, but it's it's that kind of thing.
It's hot take is it has got negative connotations.
But I do, I think people do wantto put their own opinion out
there and they do want to hear others.
And if they disagree with them, they disagree with them.
(31:57):
But it's again, it's that emotion, it's that connection,
It's that feeling something. And if that's that's something
they're feeling is, is disagreement with that, then
that's still that's still relevant.
So in terms of like types of content that work and what we
see, it can literally be anything.
Sometimes it is just how you frame it and how you get that
(32:17):
connection. Don't just put it up because you
think, oh, that's a great, greatgoal or great try and hope for
the best. How you frame it, how you
present it, how you position it.That's that's almost as.
Important like in terms of is this goal of the season for
instance, because everyone sort of says that when they see a
goal or a catch in cricket. That's the catch of the year.
And then next week they're going, that's the catch of the
(32:39):
year. You're like, OK, so you put it
up there. Is that the catch of the year?
You know, people go, oh, for sure.
No, no, this one's better, you know?
Yeah, it's, it's those kind of things you can't just put, you
can't just put something up and,and hope that it's going to
work. You've really got, you've really
got to work hard these days to actually frame it and position
it to make sure it does kind of catch fire and, and get shared.
Because the biggest, the biggestmetric from a social media point
(33:01):
of view is shares. So someone has seen it and they
want to tell their mate. It's like going to a game back
in the day and calling someone on the way home or going to the
pub and going do you, do you? Did you see that goal earlier on
today? This is this is the modern day
version of that. It's or like when you when you
watch something at the weekend when you're at school and you go
(33:21):
to go to school on Monday and go, did you see this?
Now it is, you know, click that share button straight away, tag
your mates in all those kind of things.
That's the real measure of success on some of these things.
Do you have some funky metrics like, you know, shares to clicks
to likes ratios, etcetera. There's some acronyms that
people don't know about. I have AI have a social media
(33:44):
lead who who lives in that world.
We've got a social media tool where we can go to any kind of
level. We can look at engagement per
share per click, per platform on, on a Wednesday in March.
And and it's, you see, This is why I think one of the great
(34:06):
things about leading a team is you make sure you get good
people around you and you get experts, you get subject matter
experts there. And I leave those kind of things
to him and say just give me, give me the exact summary here.
Just give me the one pager on what's working and what isn't.
Because there are so many levels.
You can, yeah, because there areso many levels you can get to in
social in particular. And you can look at so many
(34:29):
different things and you can decide you can put something out
because you want this to get shares, or you want this to get
comments, or you want this to get engagement, or you want this
to get reach. And again, if there's sponsors
involved, the sponsors may have a different imperative as well.
So you position things and you present them slightly
differently in that respect as well.
For me, it's yeah, I when I lookat a website metric, I'm
(34:51):
thinking I want people to spend time with us.
Time spent is the most important.
Ah, OK. Not multi metric time spent
right? So 22 important metrics.
Yeah, yeah. Time spent on website is the
biggest indication for me that we're doing a good job because I
don't want someone to to see onestory, click the link, spend 20
seconds scanning it and then go somewhere else.
(35:13):
But if they spend a minute with us, if they spend 90 seconds, if
they click on a second link, if it gets 2 minutes, they click on
1/3. That's success because we've got
them in the environment and we've kept them in the
environment. There was so much out there.
The which is click, click bait is used as a term called kind of
widely in the industry and you don't want people to just click
(35:37):
on one thing. What's the point?
That's drive by traffic. It's fast food is there's no
nutrients in it. You know that's.
A good one, yeah. It is, it's slightly, it's,
it's, it's going to the drive through and you'll, you'll have
it and at the time you'll go, that's great.
But then you'll drive off and you'll go home and you won't
think about it till the next time.
(35:59):
Whereas, yeah, we want, we want people to sit and we want people
to enjoy their meal and maybe have a little bit more of that
and a little bit more of that and think this is great.
I'm going to come back here whenwe know that every publisher
will get drive through traffic, they'll get a bit of the fast
food stuff. It's natural.
And as you kind of grow your audience, you you do get a
(36:19):
little bit more of that. But if we can convert some of
those people that are in Dr throughs to actually park the
car and come in, that's what we really want.
Excellent Stuart, I'm going to ask you about your your
favourite all time sporting moment.
It's a question I ask my guests sometimes and it and it throws
people Cos there's a fair few intheir heads and they're like,
which one's been my favourite? So your favourite all time
(36:41):
sporting moment Stuart? This is one I was actually
working on as well, so it kind of works on a few levels for me.
I was working for ITV Sport in in England for the 2003 Rugby
World Cup in Australia and I wasthe producer with the England
team for that tournament and obviously England.
(37:06):
I apologise. It was a great, I apologise, I
apologise only a little bit. And so I was fortunate enough to
be pitch side with, with a a reporter for that entire World
Cup final and Johnny Wilkinson'sdrop goal winner.
And we're standing alongside Johnny as we got in for an
interview. And then we were in the dressing
(37:27):
room after the game and Prince Harry came in and John Howard
came in and there was the trophy.
And it was just the culmination of an amazing seven weeks, Seven
weeks where I think in Brisbane for the quarter final against
Wales. Oh, that was half.
Time epic game. I was there, I was in that one.
(37:48):
I also went to the one against Uruguay when you guys won 100
and something to something nil. I remember the Wales game, it
got to half time and we stood upto to go back to the media area
and we actually thought for a moment, oh crap, we may actually
have to fly home tomorrow. We hadn't planned that.
We hadn't thought that England wouldn't beat Wales.
(38:10):
We always assumed that like theywould get to at least the semi
finals. So there was this moment of
realisation, oh God, this could all be over now.
But like the the rest is historythere.
And to be there and see what wasthe moment of, of sporting
history and to experience that, you know, it's my my home
country winning the World Cup, it was quite amazing.
Yeah, in Australia too, obviously with the the fierce
(38:31):
rivalry as well that that that'shappened, yeah.
And that. Is but yeah, no.
What a tremendous game of rugby.That wasn't Elton Flatley on the
on the buzzer as well to get to to extra time.
And then that that quarterfinal you talked about, remember Shane
Williams was the winger from Wales, just twinkle tails.
Yeah. And just scored him some amazing
tries through that that tournament.
And now we've got the British and Irish lines over here as
(38:52):
well. Are you getting into that?
I am, yes. That was the glory days of rugby
I guess in in 2003. And I look, I think there's
there's a few green shoots around around rugby at the
moment. But the Wallabies will need to
step up significantly from what we saw yesterday against Fiji
where they were I think extremely fortunate to win is
(39:12):
probably the best way to put it.I think yeah, the Lions will go
into this heavy favourites and Australia have got a lot of work
to do. Yes, they, they, they do.
And they got the got the bikies against Fiji, but the Waratahs
gave the Lions a bit of a test and the Lions have got a pretty
decent schedule. They got the provincial game
after provincial game. So you, you never know what
might happen with, with that Stuart, the scoreboard moment,
(39:33):
which is a moment in your life which is pretty vivid.
And it's it's something which you go, I remember that and it
was pretty clear at the time. But then from that, life kind of
changed somewhat. Yeah, I guess like one of the
defining moments of my life is I, I was actually, when I was
younger, my family and I am an only child.
(39:54):
We, we actually emigrated to Australia when I was 10 years
old. And unfortunately when I was
here my my father died about sixweeks after we'd moved here and
we ended up moving back to England as it was just the
easiest. Kind of thing to do.
We just needed the support networks around us and, and
(40:15):
things like that. And so I always think about,
obviously, I always think about that moment.
It's a very vivid moment. And as you get older, you, you
realise how those kind of moments have shaped you a little
bit and how your, your life and your personality and your
behaviours are, have been moulded by some of these things
(40:37):
that happen. And like, I'm a father myself
now to, to two kids or two Aussie kids.
And as I've mentioned on the previous one, I've kind of ended
up back here because I met my, my, my partner in South Korea in
2002 working on the FIFA World Cup.
And she's an Aussie. And we ended up doing a distance
thing for a while and then she came to London and then she
(40:58):
wanted to come home in 2006. So we did.
So I kind of feel that it's, it's a bit of a full circle
moment. My dad wanted to move to
Australia for a new life for hisfamily and I've ended up doing
that almost as a bit of a legacyto him as well.
And he was a huge football, football man.
He played semi professional football in England and loved
sport. And that's kind of one of the
(41:20):
places where my love of, of sport came in.
So I guess that's, that's the kind of moment that that I, I
reflect on more often than not. Yeah, as as I'm sure as you get
older, it's sort of the, the connection means a lot more.
And thank you for sharing that moment.
Obviously not a not a great moment in your life, but there's
some positives that have come from it over over the course of
your life. And as you said, you're coming,
(41:40):
you're living here in a beautiful country now.
And, and the weather's, well, I don't know what the weather's
like, but it's beautiful in Brisbane today.
So it's a, a good place to be. And we're pretty sport obsessed
too. So you're not a bad place to to
to work. It is, it's, I'm very fortunate
to live here and very fortunate to work in the industry here and
I really appreciate the kind of sport in landscape that we have
(42:01):
here and how much Australians love sport.
Neil, I've got a new segment which is proudly sponsored and
powered by our friends at Swiftxhere in Brisbane, which is a
crypto platform. They've got over 1.1 million
users in Australia and New Zealand.
It is the bucket list. And the bucket list is a
question around the ultimate sporting event that you would
love to attend to attend that you have not attended thus far.
(42:25):
Stuart, I'm interested in your bucket list sporting event.
This is how we've spoken about this at work recently.
I'm very, very lucky that I've done a lot.
I've been to FIFA World Cups, the Rugby World Cup, as I
mentioned before, I've toured toFrance.
I worked on when I was at SBS, I, I had Super Bowl kind of in
my head. But I feel that's, given where I
(42:46):
work, that's one that's probablythat'll be a bit more achievable
for me to go to. So the, the one that, and I
think it's part of getting olderas well.
I think it's the Masters of Augusta.
Ah, that's the second time that's come up.
Actually I think I'm after Rory's amazing tournament this
year and the shakes that he had and and the eventual success the
(43:09):
Masters has been on the on the bucket list.
I think so you, you, it's just one of those events that it is
unique. The the same course, it just
looks incredible. The traditions, everything about
it is just such a one off. And you, you look at sport
around the world and you think which, which of those events is
(43:32):
that unique? And I think the Masters is
probably one of the few that fits into that bucket, that it's
always the same spot, it's always the same way, it always
feels the same. You could, you could watch a
Masters broadcast from 15 years ago and look at one in 15 years
time and it would look as sumptuous and wonderful and
glorious and it would look very similar each time.
(43:55):
And it's, it's a very aspirational kind of tournament.
Just the idea that you turn up, you've got to put your phone in
a in a locker and you don't get it for the rest of the day.
You actually capture people's attention and thinking about my
job having people not on their phones.
It's a terrible idea. But for me to actually be able
to like put that away and not worry about it and just consume
(44:17):
what's in front of you. Just use your eyes for once and
just take it all in I think would be incredible.
I don't know how the the the actual viewing works.
Do you pick a hole or do you wander or do you pick a player?
What would you do? I reckon I would wander, well it
depend on the day. I think if you went final day
(44:37):
you may want to pick a spot and stay, maybe aiming, aiming
corner or something like that. But I think I would love to just
wander because it just, it just looks an amazing place to be.
And that that feeling of being on one hole and then you're
hearing the cheers somewhere else and then it's somewhere
else as well. And it's that story.
(45:00):
And again, you, you don't have your phone.
So it's not like you're going tobe live streaming it or you're
not going to be looking up the, the scores on ESPN.com.
You're, you're going, you're going to be actually
experiencing the tournament as it's meant to be, as it used to
be, as it will be in the future.And it's there's something,
something Old World romantic about that.
No, fabulous. That's a great bucket list and
(45:21):
hopefully one day you make it toAugusta and you can share that
story with me. Stewart Randall, Managing
Editor, digital video, audio andsocial, ESPN Australia.
It's been a pleasure having a chat to you on Scoreboard, the
podcast, and congratulations on what you've achieved at ESPN
with all those improved metrics,etcetera, in the content that
you produce, not only for American sports, but also as you
(45:42):
mentioned, at Australian sports and the peripheral products that
come with that. And I look forward to catching
up on following the progress. Thanks, Chris.
Really appreciate it.
From the arena to the front office, this is Scoreboard.
I'm Chris Titley and each episode brings you stories from
the game of sport, when mindset,money and meaning shape what
comes next. Athletes, coaches, owners and
business leaders unpack the moments that matter because the
Scoreboard isn't just about winning, it's about life beyond
the game. This episode is powered by
Swiftx, Australia's top rated crypto exchange and proudly
(00:23):
homegrown, just like many of theathletes and business leaders we
feature on Scoreboard. Now let's get to today, today's
episode. Hi, it's Chris Titley here.
And on today's episode of Scoreboard the podcast, I'm
joined by Stuart Randall, Managing Editor, digital video,
audio and Social of ESPN Australia.
Stuart, great to have you on thepodcast.
Hi Chris, thanks for having me. Delighted to be here.
(00:45):
Stuart, I've been looking forward to to this podcast only
a number of reasons, but the main reason is I've talked a lot
about the way sport is being consumed and the way sport is
being, I suppose from a social media point of view, not when I
was growing up was nothing in and around that.
But I'm keen to hear your thoughts first up about how the
landscape is changing through social media and how people
(01:08):
consume sport differently. Wow, it's that That's a very,
very short question for a very big answer.
I think. I mean, the landscape has
changed so much over the last few years.
You know, I think back to even doing these things like doing
podcasts remotely. I'm thinking about to pre COVID
when I first joined ESPN in 2018, how we did things and how
(01:30):
different the landscape was then.
And I think the it's a real democratisation of technology
has completely changed everything now in in our
industry. And it's it's created
opportunities, it's created challenges.
It's really levelled the playingfield where your big brands like
ourselves or Fox Sports or or your free to end networks and
(01:53):
their digital handles are playing in the same space as
individual creators, as individual podcasters, as you
know, a Dan does footy or you know, like at a bar or things
like that. Scoreboard, of course, yeah.
Of course. Yeah, Scoreboard of course all
have the opportunity and all have the chance to reach as many
people and in and in many cases more people than than some of
(02:14):
the big brands simply because ofthis democratisation of, of
tech. I was thinking, I was thinking
over the weekend around how things have changed in my time
in the industry. And I think the, the phone is,
is the biggest change that we'vewe've possibly had.
And you know, when I started working 25 plus years ago, I
took a plastic handset to a press box in England to plug in
(02:36):
and then read out copy to someone sitting in an office.
And nowadays I could take my phone and I could live stream
the game that I'm watching in front of me and I could go live
with my own opinion straight after the game.
Or I could use an AI tool to transcribe the coach's interview
afterwards. And the the change we've had in
such a small amount of time is quite incredible.
(02:57):
And it's, it has just opened theworld of possibilities for any
person to become a sports content creator in, in this
instance. And it's, it's exciting.
It's, it's kind of scary, but it's, it's a really interesting
world to play in at the moment. I'd, I'd love to go back to
those days in the Uki spent a bit of time in the Uki remember
the I remember the, the BlackBerry.
Remember the BlackBerry? I do, yes.
(03:18):
Yeah, that was sort of around sort of O five O 620 odd years
ago. And I really aspired to have a
BlackBerry at some point in timein my life.
But back then it was what everyone, everyone did.
It was like email on your phone.It was a real out of here.
It's a real status symbol, the BlackBerry for a while.
It sure was. And your time in the UK, you
know, with with the, you know, the sport over there, the
Premier League, all these big deals that were going on sort
(03:40):
of, you know, fork sort of shapethe next 20 years of sport.
You want to go back to those that era and talk about a little
bit of some of the learnings that you you you came across at
the time. Yeah, sure.
Like I I'm born in the UK and and lived the 1st 28 years of my
life there before I I moved to Australia.
So my original media career was there and I, I always wanted to
be a journalist when I was growing up.
(04:02):
I always wanted to work in sport.
Once I realised I wouldn't be able to play for the England
football team, I realised that Iwould have to be there in
another capacity. So I wanted to be a writer, I
wanted to be a journalist. And I, I, I went to university
and studied journalism and I washalfway through and realised I
actually just want to be doing this.
I want to be at games. So I actually dropped out of uni
at that point and worked in the supermarket Monday to Friday and
(04:26):
managed to get a job writing 152hundred word match reports for
a, for a Sports News agency in London in the 199899 season.
And they would send me to, you know, second division football
matches or Premiership Rugby matches.
And I would take my phone in my bag and get on the train and get
off and plug it in at the the press box and write out in, in
(04:50):
pen and paper my 150 words. Then dictate it down the down
the phone to a copytaker. And I did that for a year and it
was a great learning. You learnt how to write tight,
quick, accurate copy because youhad to always file on the
whistle. There was no spell cheques or
anything like that. I didn't have laptop or, or a
phone to be able to do these things for me.
(05:10):
And then eventually I, I kind ofpivoted at the end of that.
I needed a full time job. I couldn't keep working on the
meat and fish counter at my local supermarket Monday to
Friday. So I got a job at ATV station as
a, as a runner, someone whose job was to get coffee and
arrays, VHS tapes and peel stickers off things and things
like that. And gradually kind of works my
(05:32):
way through the ranks there to become a producer and director.
And then finally ended up at SkySports working on the on the
Premier League there, which was the the biggest learning ground
of all. I guess it was a very tough
place to work at the time and it's probably in in their
heyday, 2004 to 2006. I was there and it was a tough
school, but you learnt so much about the standards and quality
(05:55):
of your work and accountability as well I guess, and that really
held me in good stead for the rest of my career.
And in terms of the the blurriness of the lines between
sport, you know, as a job as a profession and enjoying sport
and then sport as a business, how have you managed that
through your career? Because you love it.
(06:15):
You never turn off, which is probably the hardest thing.
Yeah, I, I think about this weekend.
I've, you know, I've, I've been a bit sick last week, but still
at home doing some work things. And then you try to switch off
for the weekend. And I'm sitting there watching
the West Tigers game yesterday. Or yeah, flicking over to the
Wallabies. Games.
By the way, the West Tigers gameis a cracking game of foot.
(06:37):
I mean, I mean, we're back. I'm a Tigers fan, a long
suffering Tigers fan. So we are back, baby.
Yeah. But that's the thing.
You, you end up you, you never really fully switched off when
your work is also your passion. So it's that double edged sword
that it's, it's awesome. It's absolutely awesome that I
work in this field that I I justlove so much and has been part
(07:02):
of my life since I was a kid. I've always loved sports.
Soccer was being English. Soccer was my my big one.
But I've been here for nearly 20years and I love AFL and NRL and
and everything else that that comes with it.
But it is, it is a challenge sometimes to look at things
slightly dispassionately and notcontinually critique.
(07:23):
When I worked in television, I was, I was a lot worse.
So I was executive producer at SBS for 12 years and I would
always be looking at things through the broadcast lens and
go, why did they do that? Why did that bit of music look
at that mistake? And you know, my, my partner
would always say to me, why didn't you just sit and enjoy
it? Like, well, I just, I'm, I'm
looking at it. I'm just, you know, I'm just
(07:44):
seeing why they did that. So I'm, as I get older, I try to
remove myself a little bit more,but it's, it is hard sometimes
because it's such a, you know, you're always thinking about it.
I'll listen to a podcast and it'll be a sports business pod
or it'll be, you know, the Bill Simmons pod talking about NBA.
And it's not really about like it's not really about that kind
(08:04):
of lean back experience. I'm still kind of leaning
forward a little bit when I'm listening to these things or
watching something, but I am trying to get a little bit
better. You mentioned before about the
sort of democratisation of technology and, and, and the
information available for, for content creators, etcetera.
Do you think there's a bit of content overload, like you don't
(08:25):
know where to start or don't know where to begin and you
could just sit there all day 24/7 listening to content and
not do anything? There, there is we, there is an
absolute flood of it. But the, the thing that amazes
me and I'll give a little case study from, from what we've done
at ESPN is when, when I joined there in 2018, one of my roles
was to increase our presence in local sports.
(08:45):
You know, we are known for beingUS sports broadcaster, NBANFL,
etcetera. And we wanted to make a bit more
of an impression in, in local codes.
So we, we've put a lot of effortand a lot of time and resource
into doing AFL content. And we've taken it from a user
base maybe of 300,000 users consuming AFL content in 2019 to
(09:08):
about two and a half million now.
So we've we've done a really good job of that.
But I was amazed thinking why are people consuming AFL content
on ESPN when there's so much outthere and you realise that there
is such a voracious appetite forthat content.
You realise that no matter how much is created, people are
still consuming it. And it is going back to the pole
point around phones, it's peopledon't switch off.
(09:31):
You know, I've talked about not switching off and I'm kind of in
the industry. People who are just consumers
don't switch off either. They are second screening while
they're watching the game on TV or the Powerball.
They're on their commute. You know the old days of picking
up MX or even a standard in London when you're on the on the
train or on the bus is completely gone.
Everyone's on their phone, everyone's looking at what
(09:51):
happened last night. Everyone's reading something or
listening to something or listening to something and
reading something at the same time.
So there is so much content out there and it's really hard to
cut through. But on the flip side, people
just seem to want more and more and more, which from our
perspective, you've got to thinkhow we, how do we try to stand
out in, in the crowd? How do we try to make our voice
(10:12):
heard? And at the same time, you're the
best of the algorithms of the ofthe tech companies.
So it's, it's a really challenging space.
But I think like I said before, it it's an exciting one because
you have opportunity to try things.
And yeah, I, I go back to my previous one on TV, you try
something on TV and it fails andit, it's a bit tougher to do to,
(10:35):
to get back from that position. If you have a show cancelled, or
you know a show has terrible ratings, if you put a piece of
content up on the Internet that doesn't go particularly well,
you just do another 1-10 minuteslater and try and make it
better. Yeah, No, you touched on ESPN
there in terms of the the brain in Australia, people thinking
America and then you're startingto do AFL content.
(10:56):
How have you gone about educating the the user base, the
the the consumer out there goingthat ESPN does a bit more than
just American sport? It's, it's one of the challenges
we've got. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a
good position that we're in because we're so known for
something and in a time where brand recognition is, is quite
hard for people and there's a lot of turbulence in the market,
(11:17):
I think to be known for something is, is a real
positive. I've always said that we're,
we're big in niche sports and niche in big in this country.
So we do, you know, we're, we'rethe biggest player that there is
in basketball and NFL and you know, UFC is one of our big
things now as well, but we're trying to get a foothold in the
sports that matter to people in this country, AFLNRL, cricket,
(11:40):
etcetera. One of the advantages we have is
we own footy tips. So we actually have an audience
there of, you know, one and a half million tippers on local
sport. So we've really been trying to
tap into that. We've been trying to educate
people that, you know, when, when you're doing your tips, we
we offer them more content in the app there.
You know, if you'd like to, you'd like to be smarter about
(12:01):
how you tip and read this article or watch this video or
listen to the footy tips podcast.
All these, all these little things, these little Nuggets
that we're trying to drop to tryand entice people to spend a bit
more time with us, to engage with us a little bit more, to
click on one more link. And we've been trying to do
that. And then we've, we've tried to
say this position in local sports where, you know, we're
(12:22):
not beholden to anybody. We don't have rights for
anything. We, you know, we don't really
have official formal relationships with governing
bodies or other media groups. So we can just be honest about
things. We can just say say them as they
are. So we tried to do that.
We tried to take some of that ESPN ethos of storytelling and
almost like a frankness in the way we cover a sport and bring
(12:44):
that into AFL. And to a degree NRLAFL has been
a focus more recently. And like I say, we've had some
real success with that. We've got a couple of podcasts
on the go now. We just brought Mason Cops on
board to do a YouTube first showfor us as well and we've managed
to make some real inroads into transforming some of that footy
(13:04):
Tips audience into regular ESPN users, which has been really
good. You're managing it at a digital
video, audio and social. There's a few buckets there.
How have you gone about sort of focusing on those buckets and
ones better than the other and whatnot and time allocation
etcetera? How's your brain thinking about
that? Well, I think content is
(13:25):
probably the word about, it's funny, we're in an, in an
industry where we're still very siloed in a way.
We look at things sometimes. And I'm talking broadly here,
not not necessarily at ESPN, butvery broadly.
We think this is TV, this is digital, this is social, this is
video. And in my mind, it's, it's all
just content. It's the, the, the
(13:47):
differentiation is the platform you're watching it or listening
to it on, but it is all content.And so you what it's just about
tailoring the right piece of content to the right audience on
the right platform at the right time.
You can have the best, best possible piece of content.
And you think this is done, Thisis done an absolutely pop when
we put this on social and it just doesn't.
(14:09):
And there could be 1,000,000 reasons for that.
It could be the algorithm, it could be the time of day.
It could be somebody else put something similar just
beforehand and they got pushed up.
You just a lot of the time you just don't know.
I don't think anyone who says they know how the algorithms
work and you know that this doing the content in this way
will definitely work. Is, is, is lying really?
Because no one really does know.We're all, we're all learning at
(14:32):
this. We're all still trying to find
our way and we're all still making mistakes.
And I, I think that's one of thebest things you can do is you
can try things and you can, you can fail and the failure isn't
necessarily a bad thing. It's just another way to learn
and another way to get some experience in thinking right.
That didn't work. So let's try it somewhere else
(14:55):
or in a different way or at a different time.
When I, I think when I, when I started, we, the industry in
general, had a feeling of we don't take this piece of
content, we don't put it on television and then we're going
to put it on the Internet and then we're going to put it on
social. And it was the same piece of
content unchanged. It was cut in the same way, just
looked exactly the same. And that one size fits all
(15:18):
approach is still being done in in some places, I think and it
just doesn't work. The audience is too smart for
that. The algorithms are too, too
intelligent for that as well. So it's there isn't one bucket
that's more important than the other.
From a from a content perspective or engagement
perspective. Obviously there's revenues
attached in different places which which can dictate the
(15:39):
priorities you give sometimes, but it's all about forming a
connection with the audience. You can have the best production
values, you can have the best intentions of how you want a
piece, but if it doesn't connect, if it doesn't emote, if
it doesn't make the person on their phone feel something,
there's no real point in in whatyou've done and.
(16:01):
And to to my a question now around you've got sport, let's
call it your basketball, and then you've got various leagues
underneath the basketball, you know, as an example, the NBA and
then the NBL. And then within that you've got
the teams and then within that you've got the players and
they're all producing content. Again, they're all kind of like
showcasing different types of content around the plays.
(16:24):
How does ESPN work with that, I suppose and and they're doing
something and you go, oh, actually we're going to do that
or vice versa. And how does it all play in?
Well, I think we have, you know,we have partnerships with with
certain competitions with the NBAWNBANBLWNBL and yeah, we want
to work with them when we can, but also there has to be a
(16:47):
little bit of a church in state thing there as well.
Sometimes we don't have to publish something that's not
going to be that they may not like or it's a controversial
take or things like that. And we are a news organisation
ultimately at our heart and in our in our ethos from a history
of ESPN. So we have to approach that in a
(17:08):
quite an even handed way in terms of the the amount of
content that's out there and thedifferent types of content
between them. We, we do see ourselves a little
bit as that kind of one stop shop because we know that, you
know, fandom is not it, It's notsiloed.
Fans aren't generally just Golden State Warriors and
(17:29):
nothing else matters in their life.
We know that there is in Australia with I think we did
some studies a couple of years ago that before COVID, the
average person was interested inabout 4.6 different leagues or
teams around the world. In 2023, that had gone up to
7.8. So there's been an explosion of
(17:50):
interest in sports and leagues and competitions around the
world. This environment we're in where
you can basically watch any competition in the world at any
time on your phone means that suddenly people are interested.
And so that puts us in a really strong position.
I think we've got a yeah. I, I, I personally think a best
in class app in terms of live scores and news.
(18:12):
And if you are a fan of, say, the New York Yankees, The Jets,
Collingwood and Melbourne Storm,we can give you pretty much all
you need on all those teams in one spot.
And, and I think that's that's acase for so many of the
competitions that we look after and so much of the sport that we
(18:34):
do. We focus very much on the sports
and the leagues and the competitions that the kind of
younger fanbase are interested in.
We're lucky we have a young audience with ESPN and we really
focus on that and we really try to push as much content that
appeals to that kind of demographic.
(18:54):
And we know that people will go to their athlete podcast or
they'll go to the the club sites.
But kind of going back to the points before there is so much
content and there's so much appetite for content that people
will still come to us. And we've we've seen the
evidence of that. We've continually growing our
audience on and off platform over the last three or four
years. You talked about demographics
(19:16):
there and you talked about your audience.
How do you kind of get that? Is that through the the login to
to register, just follow teams, etcetera, Because obviously on
platforms some of these big techcompanies may not want to share
that data or or do they? Yeah.
Well, well, we have certain analytics tools in house which
which give us that data, particularly around social
(19:38):
media. We can see very granular details
around who our social media audience is, where they're from,
what their age is, what they're interested in.
And there's other there's other tools that we can use which give
us a really good insight into that.
And then we use focus groups as well around these things.
And we do regular surveys and check insurance to see see kind
(19:59):
of the health of our brand, I guess.
And we've got, you know, we knowthat the sports that we cover
are appealing. To to the younger, to a younger
demographic in this country, basketball is, you know, it's
the fastest growing participation sport, it's the
second biggest in the country and we are the Homer hoops in
Australia. So we know that that is a really
(20:20):
good position to be in and a really strong position and a
strong foundation for us to growin.
We know the NFL is, you know, Super Bowl day, I think, Andrew
Webster said in the Sydney Morning Herald a few years ago.
Super Bowl is now the young person's Melbourne Cup day.
Everyone takes a sickie, everyone's off, everyone goes to
the pub at 10 in the morning. On a Monday morning.
On a Monday morning, yes. And we ran a Super Bowl sickie
(20:43):
campaign for the last two years,which Stephen A Smith did for
us. So there's a real, that's where
I think we're we've we've got quite a strong position that we
we have this young audience and we're continuing to serve them
this content. And the beauty of something like
the NBA and basketball is it never stops.
You know, we are here three weeks after 2, two and a bit
(21:07):
weeks up game seven in the Finals and we went straight into
draught and we went straight into Kevin Durant being traded.
And the trades, the draught and every day and logs on goes what
happened last. Oh, log on to yes, I'm giving
you a plug here. Log on to ESPN to check out what
trades have been happening. Exactly.
And we're in this, we're in this365 day a year NBA economy,
summer league games started yesterday.
(21:27):
And I'm thinking this is ridiculous.
That even caught me by surprise.So I think are we already into
summer league straight away? And you've got Aussies playing
in summer league. And that's, that's the other
part of this. There are the NBA is so
aspirational for for Australians.
I think we've had #1 draught picks.
You know, we've had people go, we've had a number of lottery
picks. We had a number of NBA
champions. Got another one this year.
(21:50):
There are, and you see the pathway from the NBL through to
the NBA. And I think that recognition, I
think that Aussies on the big stage is still something that
the people here really like and I really kind of appreciate.
And I think it's a little bit like Premier League soccer
probably was in the 90s here when you had Carrie Kuehl and
(22:11):
Mark Paduka. There's almost a sense of pride
in following those competitions because like the Aussies doing
well, Tim. Yeah, exactly.
And I think I think you're now getting a little bit of that
with US sports. Luke Longley, obviously the
Trailblazer initially, but you see what Dyson Daniels did last
season, you see Josh Giddy having a resurgence in Chicago
and you see Aussies going through the draught.
(22:34):
And we had four Aussies picked in the second round this year.
So there is definitely, it's that continual interest.
And it's that thread between these kids that were playing at
the NBA, on the NBL, at John Kane Arena and on a Friday
night. You watch them on ESPN, you see
them in the draught, then you see them in Summer League, then
you'll see them eventually made their NBA debuts.
So we're able to tell a story from the star all the way
(22:57):
through to almost to its completion.
And yeah, I think it's a pretty cool opportunity we have around
some of those sports. When it comes to, you know, we
talk about the Australian consumption of, of US based
sports that what, where's that trend been?
And do you think you know the, the, the democratisation, the,
OR the access I suppose to, to follow teams and follow leagues
(23:18):
over in the US has sort of changed grassroots sport
participation somewhat? I think it has and I, you can
see that, you know, my, my daughter played basketball here
in Sydney and there were times when games will be cancelled
because they couldn't find a court because there's so much
(23:39):
interest and there's so many people playing it.
I think the beauty of something like basketball is that it's a
little bit like soccer. You, you need the ball and
that's about it. You can kind of do it anywhere.
And that's it is such a simple sport to play.
And in a world where I think parents are starting to get
concerned around the impacts of,you know, high contact sports
(24:02):
like like rugby, both rugby codes like AFL, when you talk
about concussions. And you'll see more and more
kids being guided into playing different sports like
basketball, like soccer. And you see as well, the other
aspect of it is the culture. They love wearing basketball
jerseys. You know, they love wearing the
Jordans, is that there's a wholeculture around is that
(24:24):
intersection between sport and culture that the basketball and
the NBA in particular does so well?
And you see music as well is part of this.
And it's the people don't reallysupport in being basketball
anyway. They're not really fine in teams
anymore. They're just following their
stars. They're following LeBron,
they're following, you know, KD,they're following the next
(24:44):
generation will be Shay. It'll be yeah, all these players
that they, they just love and they'll get their jersey and
then when Luca moves, they'll get their their new Luca jersey.
It's that fandom that is createdthrough through clips on TikTok,
through dunks they see on Instagram.
They we know that they're not we're not getting 15 year olds
(25:05):
coming out and seeing them watching a whole NBA game.
That's you know, we we understand that, but as long as
they're consuming the NBA via, you know, attic top moments of
of Luca doing something or, you know, they're they're clicking
on the alert that shams has justdone at Durant's part of a 17
trade and things like that. We know that there is such an
industry around the NBA now thatit's really captivating to
(25:27):
younger people. And that's and that's
translating itself in into how they actually want to play the
sport themselves. They want to wear the jersey and
they want to try the three pointCurry shot from the corner or
they want to go and do a big LeBron dunk or something like
that. It is.
It's a very aspirational kind ofsport and it's one that can be
almost easily translated into the actual game itself.
(25:49):
You mentioned about following players.
The the access that people have to the players is a lot
different. When we were growing up, we'll
sort of watch them on TV and youmight glimpse them on the street
sometimes and you may even, you know, get an autograph.
Nowadays you can follow people behind the scenes on social
media and see that they're normal human beings, broadly
speaking, that they go to the the coffee shop or they're in
(26:09):
the gym, etcetera. The connection, as you talked
about previously, between a regular punter watching sport
and and an athlete is closer than ever, I think.
Is it getting closer and closer and closer?
And what do you think is the future of, I suppose a
relationship between a fan and Aand a player?
It is. It is definitely getting closer.
(26:30):
My slight concern is when it crosses the lines, I mean, you
see the stories of the, what some people say in DMS to
players, you know, a player misses a kick at the end of the
footy game and the abuse they'rereceiving DMS.
And I think there may be a pointwhere it contracts a little bit
and players are a little bit more guarded about what they do.
(26:50):
Like if you lose again, they maynot come on, actually post
something. And I, I think that would be a
very bad place for us to get into.
But it's probably emblematic of the way certain aspects of
social media have gone in society in general, where it
seems to be around extremes a little bit.
So I, I really hope that that doesn't happen.
It doesn't discourage athletes from being honest.
(27:11):
You know, we would in the media,we'd love athletes being honest.
We, we continually get the sanitised version of them,
official media opportunities. And you only, you often only get
the real version of them from their own social media channels.
And you see the amount of stories that are written by
certain outlets just basically looking at some of the social
media feed. So I really hope that we don't
(27:34):
get to the point where people close up too much because I
think there's too much of that. There's too much sanitised, too
much sanitised appearances from athletes in the media,
particularly in this country. I, I look at America as being
very different. I think they're a lot more raw,
they're a lot more honest. And there don't seem to be quite
as many guide ropes, I think around them in in NBA and NFL in
(27:57):
particular. Whereas I look at here and you
see, you know, Jack Guineven does a celebration in a game and
he's criticised by all and sundry.
And there has to be an apology. Or, you know, the Swans have to
come out and do an apology because somebody, you know, did
an action on the field or said something after a game or did a
post. And I think we need to let
people be people and we need to let people have a personality.
(28:20):
Because if the game just becomesthis vanilla, all we all, all
that people ever see is, you know, 18 robots going around in
different colours for each footyteam, what's the point?
It's about connection. As I said, it's about emotion.
It's about feeling something. And you know, we shouldn't
prevent people from being the people they are just because
(28:41):
they happen to be playing for a footy club.
Obviously there's boundaries on,on what you should say and, and
decency and respect and things like that.
But if somebody is just doing a celebration like a Jack in them
and then yeah, let them go for it.
Yeah, leads me to the next question around the types of
content that resonates well every now and then.
(29:03):
And there's might be a blurry ground that someone does
something controversial as opposed to an amazing goal,
which I'm sure, or amazing play,which I'm sure will get some
good likes and good shares, etcetera.
But then you maybe someone does something funny or maybe someone
does a little bit controversial,or maybe there's the the big
beef that happens and everyone goes, oh mate, check this out.
For instance, what are you, how do you how do you see that and
(29:25):
some data and going actually just the the play of the day
doesn't make it anymore. It's, it's funny the things that
work and the things that don't work.
Like I think the biggest clip that we've done on TikTok this
year and we've had, we're an amazing year on TikTok.
We've done over like 100 millionviews for our channel.
We did a knockout from AUFC Fight Night in Shanghai in a
(29:49):
women's flyweight fight and it did something like 12 million
views just for that clip. And it was, it wasn't like it
was a major fight. It wasn't a world title fight.
It was somewhere off the undercard.
And it wasn't even the most spectacular knockout.
But it it was, there was just something about it that
resonated and it just went crazy.
And I think we we got a bit fortunate that there weren't
(30:09):
many other people put in the same content out at the same
time. So our one kind of caught fire a
little bit. We've had some good success.
We've just been showing the Australia W Indies series on on
Disney Plus this last week and ahalf and we've had some really
good success out of out of some clips from that as well,
(30:30):
particularly a lot of the controversial ones when the
third umpires involved. What was this?
And we positioned it as asking the question, you know, was this
out? And we've given people the
opportunity. We're actually, yeah, we and
it's not engagement for engagement's sake if this is a
legitimate part of something that happened in the game.
But all we're doing is saying, what do you think?
(30:52):
And by giving people the opportunity, by actually opening
the door, people actually do want to give an opinion.
Then we did a clip from AI thinkit was from a like a country
footy game and it's a ridiculousmark a couple of weeks ago and
that went crazy and the same thing we're like, is this mark
of the year or is this better than so and so's mark in the
AFL? And again, it opened the door
(31:13):
for people to just have an opinion and people love to put
their own opinion forward these days.
And there's a million platforms where you can do that.
I mean, we have a you look at ESPN in the US is all about
opinions a lot of the time now Stephen A Smith and Pat McPhee
and all all the shows we have, it may have felt.
Common. To take.
Etcetera, hot water with a couple of clubs as well this
(31:34):
year, yeah. There is, yes, there is.
Maybe maybe similar trying to godown a similar path a little bit
there, but it's it's that kind of thing.
It's hot take is it has got negative connotations.
But I do, I think people do wantto put their own opinion out
there and they do want to hear others.
And if they disagree with them, they disagree with them.
(31:57):
But it's again, it's that emotion, it's that connection,
It's that feeling something. And if that's that's something
they're feeling is, is disagreement with that, then
that's still that's still relevant.
So in terms of like types of content that work and what we
see, it can literally be anything.
Sometimes it is just how you frame it and how you get that
(32:17):
connection. Don't just put it up because you
think, oh, that's a great, greatgoal or great try and hope for
the best. How you frame it, how you
present it, how you position it.That's that's almost as.
Important like in terms of is this goal of the season for
instance, because everyone sort of says that when they see a
goal or a catch in cricket. That's the catch of the year.
And then next week they're going, that's the catch of the
(32:39):
year. You're like, OK, so you put it
up there. Is that the catch of the year?
You know, people go, oh, for sure.
No, no, this one's better, you know?
Yeah, it's, it's those kind of things you can't just put, you
can't just put something up and,and hope that it's going to
work. You've really got, you've really
got to work hard these days to actually frame it and position
it to make sure it does kind of catch fire and, and get shared.
Because the biggest, the biggestmetric from a social media point
(33:01):
of view is shares. So someone has seen it and they
want to tell their mate. It's like going to a game back
in the day and calling someone on the way home or going to the
pub and going do you, do you? Did you see that goal earlier on
today? This is this is the modern day
version of that. It's or like when you when you
watch something at the weekend when you're at school and you go
(33:21):
to go to school on Monday and go, did you see this?
Now it is, you know, click that share button straight away, tag
your mates in all those kind of things.
That's the real measure of success on some of these things.
Do you have some funky metrics like, you know, shares to clicks
to likes ratios, etcetera. There's some acronyms that
people don't know about. I have AI have a social media
(33:44):
lead who who lives in that world.
We've got a social media tool where we can go to any kind of
level. We can look at engagement per
share per click, per platform on, on a Wednesday in March.
And and it's, you see, This is why I think one of the great
(34:06):
things about leading a team is you make sure you get good
people around you and you get experts, you get subject matter
experts there. And I leave those kind of things
to him and say just give me, give me the exact summary here.
Just give me the one pager on what's working and what isn't.
Because there are so many levels.
You can, yeah, because there areso many levels you can get to in
social in particular. And you can look at so many
(34:29):
different things and you can decide you can put something out
because you want this to get shares, or you want this to get
comments, or you want this to get engagement, or you want this
to get reach. And again, if there's sponsors
involved, the sponsors may have a different imperative as well.
So you position things and you present them slightly
differently in that respect as well.
For me, it's yeah, I when I lookat a website metric, I'm
(34:51):
thinking I want people to spend time with us.
Time spent is the most important.
Ah, OK. Not multi metric time spent
right? So 22 important metrics.
Yeah, yeah. Time spent on website is the
biggest indication for me that we're doing a good job because I
don't want someone to to see onestory, click the link, spend 20
seconds scanning it and then go somewhere else.
(35:13):
But if they spend a minute with us, if they spend 90 seconds, if
they click on a second link, if it gets 2 minutes, they click on
1/3. That's success because we've got
them in the environment and we've kept them in the
environment. There was so much out there.
The which is click, click bait is used as a term called kind of
widely in the industry and you don't want people to just click
(35:37):
on one thing. What's the point?
That's drive by traffic. It's fast food is there's no
nutrients in it. You know that's.
A good one, yeah. It is, it's slightly, it's,
it's, it's going to the drive through and you'll, you'll have
it and at the time you'll go, that's great.
But then you'll drive off and you'll go home and you won't
think about it till the next time.
(35:59):
Whereas, yeah, we want, we want people to sit and we want people
to enjoy their meal and maybe have a little bit more of that
and a little bit more of that and think this is great.
I'm going to come back here whenwe know that every publisher
will get drive through traffic, they'll get a bit of the fast
food stuff. It's natural.
And as you kind of grow your audience, you you do get a
(36:19):
little bit more of that. But if we can convert some of
those people that are in Dr throughs to actually park the
car and come in, that's what we really want.
Excellent Stuart, I'm going to ask you about your your
favourite all time sporting moment.
It's a question I ask my guests sometimes and it and it throws
people Cos there's a fair few intheir heads and they're like,
which one's been my favourite? So your favourite all time
(36:41):
sporting moment Stuart? This is one I was actually
working on as well, so it kind of works on a few levels for me.
I was working for ITV Sport in in England for the 2003 Rugby
World Cup in Australia and I wasthe producer with the England
team for that tournament and obviously England.
(37:06):
I apologise. It was a great, I apologise, I
apologise only a little bit. And so I was fortunate enough to
be pitch side with, with a a reporter for that entire World
Cup final and Johnny Wilkinson'sdrop goal winner.
And we're standing alongside Johnny as we got in for an
interview. And then we were in the dressing
(37:27):
room after the game and Prince Harry came in and John Howard
came in and there was the trophy.
And it was just the culmination of an amazing seven weeks, Seven
weeks where I think in Brisbane for the quarter final against
Wales. Oh, that was half.
Time epic game. I was there, I was in that one.
(37:48):
I also went to the one against Uruguay when you guys won 100
and something to something nil. I remember the Wales game, it
got to half time and we stood upto to go back to the media area
and we actually thought for a moment, oh crap, we may actually
have to fly home tomorrow. We hadn't planned that.
We hadn't thought that England wouldn't beat Wales.
(38:10):
We always assumed that like theywould get to at least the semi
finals. So there was this moment of
realisation, oh God, this could all be over now.
But like the the rest is historythere.
And to be there and see what wasthe moment of, of sporting
history and to experience that, you know, it's my my home
country winning the World Cup, it was quite amazing.
Yeah, in Australia too, obviously with the the fierce
(38:31):
rivalry as well that that that'shappened, yeah.
And that. Is but yeah, no.
What a tremendous game of rugby.That wasn't Elton Flatley on the
on the buzzer as well to get to to extra time.
And then that that quarterfinal you talked about, remember Shane
Williams was the winger from Wales, just twinkle tails.
Yeah. And just scored him some amazing
tries through that that tournament.
And now we've got the British and Irish lines over here as
(38:52):
well. Are you getting into that?
I am, yes. That was the glory days of rugby
I guess in in 2003. And I look, I think there's
there's a few green shoots around around rugby at the
moment. But the Wallabies will need to
step up significantly from what we saw yesterday against Fiji
where they were I think extremely fortunate to win is
(39:12):
probably the best way to put it.I think yeah, the Lions will go
into this heavy favourites and Australia have got a lot of work
to do. Yes, they, they, they do.
And they got the got the bikies against Fiji, but the Waratahs
gave the Lions a bit of a test and the Lions have got a pretty
decent schedule. They got the provincial game
after provincial game. So you, you never know what
might happen with, with that Stuart, the scoreboard moment,
(39:33):
which is a moment in your life which is pretty vivid.
And it's it's something which you go, I remember that and it
was pretty clear at the time. But then from that, life kind of
changed somewhat. Yeah, I guess like one of the
defining moments of my life is I, I was actually, when I was
younger, my family and I am an only child.
(39:54):
We, we actually emigrated to Australia when I was 10 years
old. And unfortunately when I was
here my my father died about sixweeks after we'd moved here and
we ended up moving back to England as it was just the
easiest. Kind of thing to do.
We just needed the support networks around us and, and
(40:15):
things like that. And so I always think about,
obviously, I always think about that moment.
It's a very vivid moment. And as you get older, you, you
realise how those kind of moments have shaped you a little
bit and how your, your life and your personality and your
behaviours are, have been moulded by some of these things
(40:37):
that happen. And like, I'm a father myself
now to, to two kids or two Aussie kids.
And as I've mentioned on the previous one, I've kind of ended
up back here because I met my, my, my partner in South Korea in
2002 working on the FIFA World Cup.
And she's an Aussie. And we ended up doing a distance
thing for a while and then she came to London and then she
(40:58):
wanted to come home in 2006. So we did.
So I kind of feel that it's, it's a bit of a full circle
moment. My dad wanted to move to
Australia for a new life for hisfamily and I've ended up doing
that almost as a bit of a legacyto him as well.
And he was a huge football, football man.
He played semi professional football in England and loved
sport. And that's kind of one of the
(41:20):
places where my love of, of sport came in.
So I guess that's, that's the kind of moment that that I, I
reflect on more often than not. Yeah, as as I'm sure as you get
older, it's sort of the, the connection means a lot more.
And thank you for sharing that moment.
Obviously not a not a great moment in your life, but there's
some positives that have come from it over over the course of
your life. And as you said, you're coming,
(41:40):
you're living here in a beautiful country now.
And, and the weather's, well, I don't know what the weather's
like, but it's beautiful in Brisbane today.
So it's a, a good place to be. And we're pretty sport obsessed
too. So you're not a bad place to to
to work. It is, it's, I'm very fortunate
to live here and very fortunate to work in the industry here and
I really appreciate the kind of sport in landscape that we have
(42:01):
here and how much Australians love sport.
Neil, I've got a new segment which is proudly sponsored and
powered by our friends at Swiftxhere in Brisbane, which is a
crypto platform. They've got over 1.1 million
users in Australia and New Zealand.
It is the bucket list. And the bucket list is a
question around the ultimate sporting event that you would
love to attend to attend that you have not attended thus far.
(42:25):
Stuart, I'm interested in your bucket list sporting event.
This is how we've spoken about this at work recently.
I'm very, very lucky that I've done a lot.
I've been to FIFA World Cups, the Rugby World Cup, as I
mentioned before, I've toured toFrance.
I worked on when I was at SBS, I, I had Super Bowl kind of in
my head. But I feel that's, given where I
(42:46):
work, that's one that's probablythat'll be a bit more achievable
for me to go to. So the, the one that, and I
think it's part of getting olderas well.
I think it's the Masters of Augusta.
Ah, that's the second time that's come up.
Actually I think I'm after Rory's amazing tournament this
year and the shakes that he had and and the eventual success the
(43:09):
Masters has been on the on the bucket list.
I think so you, you, it's just one of those events that it is
unique. The the same course, it just
looks incredible. The traditions, everything about
it is just such a one off. And you, you look at sport
around the world and you think which, which of those events is
(43:32):
that unique? And I think the Masters is
probably one of the few that fits into that bucket, that it's
always the same spot, it's always the same way, it always
feels the same. You could, you could watch a
Masters broadcast from 15 years ago and look at one in 15 years
time and it would look as sumptuous and wonderful and
glorious and it would look very similar each time.
(43:55):
And it's, it's a very aspirational kind of tournament.
Just the idea that you turn up, you've got to put your phone in
a in a locker and you don't get it for the rest of the day.
You actually capture people's attention and thinking about my
job having people not on their phones.
It's a terrible idea. But for me to actually be able
to like put that away and not worry about it and just consume
(44:17):
what's in front of you. Just use your eyes for once and
just take it all in I think would be incredible.
I don't know how the the the actual viewing works.
Do you pick a hole or do you wander or do you pick a player?
What would you do? I reckon I would wander, well it
depend on the day. I think if you went final day
(44:37):
you may want to pick a spot and stay, maybe aiming, aiming
corner or something like that. But I think I would love to just
wander because it just, it just looks an amazing place to be.
And that that feeling of being on one hole and then you're
hearing the cheers somewhere else and then it's somewhere
else as well. And it's that story.
(45:00):
And again, you, you don't have your phone.
So it's not like you're going tobe live streaming it or you're
not going to be looking up the, the scores on ESPN.com.
You're, you're going, you're going to be actually
experiencing the tournament as it's meant to be, as it used to
be, as it will be in the future.And it's there's something,
something Old World romantic about that.
No, fabulous. That's a great bucket list and
(45:21):
hopefully one day you make it toAugusta and you can share that
story with me. Stewart Randall, Managing
Editor, digital video, audio andsocial, ESPN Australia.
It's been a pleasure having a chat to you on Scoreboard, the
podcast, and congratulations on what you've achieved at ESPN
with all those improved metrics,etcetera, in the content that
you produce, not only for American sports, but also as you
(45:42):
mentioned, at Australian sports and the peripheral products that
come with that. And I look forward to catching
up on following the progress. Thanks, Chris.
Really appreciate it.
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