August 4, 2025 • 21 mins
Paul Corvino sits down with the CEO oChris Waters, the Chief Product Officer of Playground Productions. Playground Productions is a children's and family company focused on making best-in-class film, television, digital media, and video games, and has recently relaunched the beloved video game franchise Backyard Sports.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino. They I'm here with Chris Waters, the chief
product officer of Playground Productions, a children's and family company
focused on making film, television, digital media and video games,
and has recently relaunched a beloved video game franchise, Backyard Sports. Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thanks for having me, Paul. Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
So tell you a little bitch, you sol, Where are
you from?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I am Australian, so as you can tell from my accent,
I'm from Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Moved to the United States.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I don't really hear a big there's no accent of
being facetious.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, I moved here when I was seven.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
It was supposed to be a quick two year jaunt
to America, and then fate stepped in and I stayed
and I've been here ever since.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And where you grew up?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I grew up in the valley, so Sherman Oaks, you know.
So I've been in kind of Sokolmar from here, No,
not far from here at all.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So tell you where'd you go to school? Did you
want to get involved in? Is it computer science or
is it war? You were in the game world and
sports world and that brought you to it.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, I So I went to school at UC Santa Barbara.
Two of my sons also graduated, so go Gaucho's. But I,
you know, knew I wanted to go into entertainment. My
grandfather was a character actor, was in hundreds of movies
and TV shows, and I never really had the acting bug.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
My brother got that.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I was more like love storytelling, and so I knew
I wanted to get into entertainment. And out of college
I sold a show and this at the time, I
sold it to a company called Emi, which you're probably
very familiar with. Course, this was in the heyday of
like DVDs, and so twenty two sold my first show
and that got me kind of started in animation.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
It was an animated show.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
What do You Resist Around?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
This was two thousand and three, okay, thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, So it was you know, I'd grown up my
mom's a pastor watching veggietails, and I was like, oh,
what are all these kids going to do when they're
done watching Vegietails? So I made something a little older
and it was like action adventure and we ended up
selling you know a ton of DVDs and and that
kind of launched my career and animation show.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, it's kids show.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
That was just v DVD straight to DVD, and we
even came out like our own toy.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And how did you sell that? Give me the process?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, I came up, came up with an idea, and
I went to a Brookstone and bought one of those
talking photo albums and I had friends record dialogue and
it was just you flipped the album, you hit play
on the thing. I think people mostly use them for
like family albums, but this was my idea. And then
I sent it to the president of em I c
MG in Nashville.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
How did you get to the president?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I just looked up the address and sent it.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I mean I think I'd read like maybe he'd done
an interview or had written in an.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Article and sent the book. Didn't think anything of it.
And then like two months later I got a call
and they were like, hey, we love this idea, we
want we want to fund it. And then I had
to pretty quickly figure out how I was gonna make
the show.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So now you sell it, you get money to be
able to produce it. Yeah, well, the next steps. Did
you know anything about production?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I knew I'd been doing.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I'd been doing I've been working with some guys out
of Torrents And ironically the name of the company was
Backyard Entertainment.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So it was like fate was telling me what was
going to come later in life.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
And you know, this was early days of my NCG
animation and so you know, we decided like we were
going to try to produce this thing ourselves, which was insane,
and so we made the first one, did it ourselves.
We almost died making this thing, and then from there
we were like, Okay, we can't go through that again.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And then Fox ordered more of them.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
You had a budget, and did you hire people that
knew certain aspects? How do you build a business like that?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
You know, I've often thought about this because my career
is so strange.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I started so young.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
My stepdad was an entrepreneur, and so that was I'd
always been around that like you just figure it out.
And so all my partners in the business we were
all the same age, we all went to college at
the same time, and I think we just had this
like naivete of like we'll just figure it out.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Naivete could be a beautiful thing in business.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
It can, it can it can also you know, it
can also get you into trouble sometimes. But I think
our you know, my philosophy in life is like activity,
like moving the ball forward is always more important than
being right. And the more choices you make, the more
things you push forward, the faster you learn. And so
I think like a lot of times people can get
(04:35):
paralyzed by analysis paralysis or I don't know this, I'm
not qualified.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
A good job today is better than a great one tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, yeah, So I think I think we just kind
of had the belief that we could figure it out.
I mean we obviously we had been dabbling in CG animation,
so it's not like we didn't know that part of it.
We just hadn't done it at that scale. It's a
lot different to produce a thirty second spot or a
one minute spot than to do a full cartoon. And
that was that was the biggest learning curve in terms
(05:04):
of the business. You know, it was a relatively simple business.
It's it's like a you know, at the end of
the day, you're selling DVDs, right, So there were there
were you knew who your retailers were. You knew who
buyers were. We had a distributor and EMI and they
had confidence in the product. So I just had to
deliver a really good product.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And so for how well did you do that?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
We did that for four or five years and that
led us then to actually producing veggietails. And I think
there was a while there where we were like, okay,
this is it is not sustainable for us to do
this all in LA So we started to outsource part
of the production. We worked in Taipei, we worked in India,
and eventually, you know, this is where my Australian roots
(05:45):
come back into play. We found a studio in New
Zealand and we're like, okay, we need boots on the ground.
So I knew my director needed to live there. He
was about to have a baby and he and his wife,
so he was like, look, I I you know, I
want to kind of go somewhere that I can raise
a ca and and I was like, what about New Zealand.
They had you know, the dollar at the time was
like very low relative to the US dollar. They were
(06:07):
super competitive and there's a ton of con you know,
a ton of talent down there. Thanks to Peter Jackson
and they have a lot of schools and so we
set up shop in New Zealand and started producing more
of our own content. But then we also started doing
veggietails and then that led to us, you know, working
with Nickelodeon, and we produced a ton of content for
(06:30):
Nickelodeon and DreamWorks down in New Zealand was a Madagascar,
Kung Fu, Panda Famboy and Chump Chump Robot Verson. So
we did so we were translating the movies into TV
and this was a partnership between DreamWorks and Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon
had a great team in place, and you know, we
(06:50):
really convinced them that you know, we could bring Western
sensibilities to the comedy but with a price point that
really worked for them, and that was really compelling to them.
They were looking to get into either Australia or New
Zealand or somewhere you know, outside of where they were.
They were heavily in Asia and India, and I think
they wanted to you know, diversify a little bit.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And then how did you move it to and segue
into the game business.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So this is the theme of my career is.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So we brought in a big partner in Australia that
was like a big vertically integrated media company that was
funded by an actual like an energy company randomly, and
that business kind of went on through till about twenty thirteen,
and then I got recruited to go to Seth Green's
Stupid Buddy Studios. And I think because I had developed
(07:39):
a video game with Lance preeb who created Club Penguin
and sold that to Disney, I you know, really had
learned the licensing business from there, and I learned how
to not only sell a show, but then how do
you talk to toy companies, how can you get even
toy companies to help fund content? And so that process
with Lance, you know, helped open up a whole slew
(08:00):
of other doors for me in terms of understanding the
licensing business, understanding consumer products, and also how to get
shows financed. And Seth Green and Stupid Buddy recruited me
because they had a project that was very toyatic, and
so that started as a consulting arrangement and then eventually
I became head of development at Stupid Buddy Studios, which
(08:21):
is best known for Robot Chicken, but also does Crossing
Swords and you know a lot of more adult comedy.
And so I was there for seven years, and you
know a lot of the things I'd missed by by
running my own company for so long, I got to
build a much stronger network in terms of just industry
professionals and you know, the people that you probably would
(08:44):
have met if I'd started in a traditional like agency model.
A lot of people in my kind of position would
start at like an agency like WM ORCA, build their
network and then kind of evolve their careers from there.
I had sort of done the opposite. I started as
an entrepreneur and then was like, oh, I need to
build my network. I got to know more people. And
so Seth, you know, is a great calling card. He is,
(09:07):
you know, one of the nicest people in Hollywood. He's
been in Hollywood since he was seven. And anyone I
called was always like, anything I can do for Seth.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Now you're there. It's twenty thirteen, You now running a
entertainment company. Yeah, yeah, how long did you do that for?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So I did that until twenty twenty three, and so
I was there a long time, and I love Seth.
I think stupa Buddy is one of the most you know,
really original studios in LA I mean the fact that
they do their production in Burbank. They do stop motion,
which is very throwback. And again Seth just beloved. So
(09:44):
his network's incredible and it's a deserved reputation. I've in
all the years working with him, he never said an
unkind word to anybody.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
He's just a great guy.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
It's nice to hear.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And there I met Lindsay Barnett who was introduced to
me by a manager and I was developing a show
with Common and a playwright out of New York and
she was from Chicago. She had been teaching for eight
years in a refugee school and she let me know, Hey,
I'm starting a production company. I love this show. I
(10:15):
think my kids still being a second grade teacher, so
I could that my kids would love this. It was
a kid's show. And we got to know each other
really well. And the more I learned about what she
wanted to do, which is really build a production company
but own the IP. And at STUPI Buddy, we didn't
own most of our IP. We sold our shows to
Warner Brothers and Sony and et cetera. And so that
(10:37):
was frustrating because I'd come out of a world where
I own my IP, and I was like, oh, if
you have something successful, A, you just have a lot
more autonomy and B you can do more with the
projects and whereas when you sell it, you're really creating
a job for yourself and then you get some back end.
And so when Lindsay said, hey, I want to start
this company and I want to you know, build IP
(10:57):
and I can get it to market, that was really
a p F. And so, you know, I started with
Lindsay in early twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Four and what was the first show you did?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So the first thing we did was, you know, I
had I had grand plans of building this this slate
of projects and partnering with people, and she's like, hey,
by the way, I have this. You know, I'm about
to close on backyard sports and I you know, I'm
not a millennial. I'm a little older than that. So
I missed backyard sports growing up, and I didn't know
much about it. But the more she talked about it,
(11:29):
the more excited I got. And when I was at
Stupid Buddy, we got approached all the time to develop
content based on video games, and most of that content
is just it's not narrative. It's a mechanic. It's a
game mechanic, right, But this had like real character. There
are thirty original characters that people love. They grew up with.
These characters. They remind them of the kids they grew
(11:50):
up with. And when I saw that, and I was like, oh,
this is not only as a blove video game, but
this has legs to tell stories and we can really
build this into a full franchise of not only narrative franchise,
but it's very merchandizable and most importantly like it had
a great message. You know, it was way ahead of
its time when it came out in ninety seven, super
(12:12):
diverse cast equal boys and girls with equal playing ability.
You had to pick the boys and girls to be successful.
But it felt very organic and natural and so that
really has become the focus of the company.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Very cool. So where's the company now? What are you
guys doing?
Speaker 3 (12:27):
So we in the in I guess it's been about
fifteen months. We've launched video games across Steam, so we've
launched the original backyard. So the first job was like,
let's bring some of these retro titles back then. I'm
sure a lot of the people that work in this
building played as kids. But bring them back to modern devices.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
So video games they're all links now. They're no longer
going to game stop to buy your video game.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
You know, there's still it's still a billion dollar market,
but most of the market is now digital content. So
you're on your PlayStation, or you're on Steam, or you're
on the app store and you're just.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Downloading the game. You're not physically buying.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
There are still collectors that will that want to own
a physical copy of the game, but you know, I
have a PlayStation five that doesn't even have a port
to actually put physical product. All my games are are digital,
So I think from that standpoint, there's a lot less
friction now, you know. And for us, it was like,
let's service this millennial fan base that loves these games.
(13:24):
When we announced that Backyard was coming back last August,
we had two hundred and over two hundred articles written
in not just in video game magazines but TMZ people.
Rolling Stone did a cover like the amount of.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Love parents wanting your kids to play the game.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I think millennials being like, first of all, millennials just
want to play it again. They've it's been ten years
since since a backyard new backyard game has come out.
A lot has changed since then. And also millennials probably
wouldn't have been interested ten years ago, they would have
outgrown it, but now they are starting to have their
own kids. And I think there's also just a huge
hunger for nostalgia right now, like nostalgia sports and video games.
(14:01):
It's like that ven diagram that overlap with backyard sports
makes it an incredibly powerful piece of IP.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And so what are all your games right now?
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So we launched Backyard Baseball ninety seven on Well, first
on Steam and it went number one on Steam globally.
Then we launched on iOS, same thing, went number one,
was an editorial choice Editor's pick for iOS in the
App Store as well as in the Google Android Store.
And then three weeks ago we launched on Switch and
(14:32):
PlayStation five. So now really anywhere you play games, you
can play these games that take you right back to
your childhood.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
What makes one game stand out over another?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
You know, in the case of I think it's there's
so many genres, there's so many different games. I think
in the case of Backyard, I think what made it
good is a It was very accessible. So you got
a lot of sports games now that just require a
lot of what they call like finger karate, just a
lot of setup, a lot of time to learn. This
is a point and click game. It was made for kids,
and so I think first and foremost it's just very accessible.
(15:05):
Second thing is there's character. You pick your team. So
when you're gonna pick your team of let's say it's
a backyard baseball, you pick your team in nine players.
You're clicking on each of their faces and they're telling
you why you should pick them. It's just like being
in the backyard as a kid. And I think that
novelty of like, oh, this isn't like I pick the
Dodgers and I have all the Dodgers players, or I
pick famous baseball players. This is like you're picking kids
(15:26):
you don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You choose each other, you gut first pick and then.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
You see their stats and you're like, okay, I'm gonna pick.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You'd have the poor kid at the end, it doesn't
get picked.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
There's always the kid's usually probably, but the kid that
always gets picked first is Pablo Sanchez. And Pablo is
this little kid who does not look like an athlete.
He's got a little milk belly. We called a milk belly,
like the you know, the babies have the little baby belly.
He doesn't speak a word of English, and but he is,
without a doubt, the greatest video game athlete of all time.
(15:56):
And I've got a tattoo of Pablo on my arm right,
that's how much I love this character.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And there's something like he has this.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Joy and he expresses that joy in a way that
just comes through in the games. And I think these
kids captured the imagination of the millennials that grew up
playing the game, and they just like stayed in there.
And when you bring up any of these names, whether
it's Pablo Sanchez or Pete Wheeler who's the fastest player,
and you bunt and he gets on first every time,
(16:23):
like they just it's like the kids they grew up with.
And that's so powerful.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
How do you get the market to know the games
advertise your online is no longer? You know, do they
buy you know what they see it? Also in the
store is still yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I mean I think I think I've worked on a
lot of ip you know, it's Super Buddy with Robot Chicken,
and we worked with Disney, and you know, I've worked
on a lot of stuff in my days in Nickelodeon
before that.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I ask you, this question has set you up to
sell you advertising? Yes, go on.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I have never seen a piece of IP that has
had the kind of traction we've gotten in just a
year in Backyard, and I think most of it's been organic.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
We don't do paid advertising.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
So whether it's Baker Mayfield for long not for long, Yes,
soon we'll be advertising on our heart radio.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Of course.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Baker Mayfield wore Pablo Sanchez jersey and threw five touchdowns.
Bobby Witt used a Pablo Sanchez bat and hit a
home run. The Mookie Bets wore a Pablo Sanchez hat
during the playoffs won the World Series. So we always say,
the power of Pablo is real.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I need one of those hats. There you go, all right, now,
I got my hat. This hat will help me. This
increase my radio.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I'm are going up, revenue is going up. Everyone's gonna
be like, what is it, Paul, something different? You look
great in at that. So this you know again, you
can't manufacture enthusiasm and passion. It's it's like either there
or it isn't. I think when you're creating something, that's
what you hope for. You hope that you hit a nerve.
(17:52):
And I think for us, what we've been able to
do is bring something back that's been gone. There's there's
a huge pent up demand. Before we announced that was
coming back, the Kelsey's were on New Heights talking about,
hey remember backyard sports, and that got a ton of traction.
And so I think we've been really fortunate that there
is a lot of pent up demand, a lot of enthusiasm.
(18:13):
And then going forward, I think we really believe content
is the most powerful form of marketing, whether it's putting
out these retro titles, whether it's making great social content.
Our social accounts have grown really quickly. Again all organically,
I think it's how do you create great content, how
do you be fans of your fans and really service
(18:33):
that passion, And then again, where do you want to
show up? And for us, increasingly, we want to show
up where families are. So we've got this weekend we're
going to be in Atlanta. We have a partnership with
Dave and Busters, so we'll be doing a backyard event
at Dave and Busters during the All Star Game in
Atlanta followed very quickly. We're doing a backyard night.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It really, it's what it's all about. Yeah, the same
with us in a similar business and radio. Yeah, on
air talent. They are our best influencers and endorses, and
we do events and remotes, we bring them out. It's just,
you know, almost exactly the same thing as would you
do exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
And we're doing event at City City Park in with
the Mets on the twentieth, and on the twenty fifth,
we're taking over PNC Park with the Pirates and doing
a full backyard Night there.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So they'll be the games will be there, they'll be
using all the characters.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Like people love getting backyardified, they love getting drawn in
the style of backyard sports. And so that's why again
a lot of that traction that we get is celebrities
reaching out and be like, can you draw me in
that style? I want to be the backyard kid. And
so those are the kind of things, you know, dude,
perfect Nade a couple videos two weeks ago that that
you know, got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years
(19:46):
of just them playing the game. And so that's the
other thing is just it translates well to streaming and
to video because it's funny and these kids are making
errors and it's it's not a game of perfection. It's
a game of fun.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
So tell the audience how they could download or stream
the product.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Well, the easiest thing to do is go to backyard
sports dot com and there you'll find the games that
are available and links to whether it's Steam, iOS or console,
you'll be able to find the links to each of
the games and where you can find them. And then
you know, if they haven't come out yet, go to
Steam and wish list the games because that says a
lot to the publishers too, like, oh, there's a lot
of wish lists and you know, so that helps us
(20:21):
as well. If you're a fan of this series and
want more games and but backyard sports dot com or
follow us on backyard Sports Official on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Thank you so much. Once again, we're here with Chris
Water is the chief product officer of Playground Productions, and
he's relaunched a game that we all love, Backyard Sports.
If you're interested, as you said, go to backyardsports dot com.
Thank you so much Chris for being on.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Oh it's pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
This is Paul Corvino, Division president of iHeartMedia saying thank
you for listening to another segment of CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Listen to CEOs you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino. They I'm here with Chris Waters, the chief
product officer of Playground Productions, a children's and family company
focused on making film, television, digital media and video games,
and has recently relaunched a beloved video game franchise, Backyard Sports. Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thanks for having me, Paul. Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
So tell you a little bitch, you sol, Where are
you from?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I am Australian, so as you can tell from my accent,
I'm from Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Moved to the United States.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I don't really hear a big there's no accent of
being facetious.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, I moved here when I was seven.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
It was supposed to be a quick two year jaunt
to America, and then fate stepped in and I stayed
and I've been here ever since.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And where you grew up?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I grew up in the valley, so Sherman Oaks, you know.
So I've been in kind of Sokolmar from here, No,
not far from here at all.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So tell you where'd you go to school? Did you
want to get involved in? Is it computer science or
is it war? You were in the game world and
sports world and that brought you to it.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, I So I went to school at UC Santa Barbara.
Two of my sons also graduated, so go Gaucho's. But I,
you know, knew I wanted to go into entertainment. My
grandfather was a character actor, was in hundreds of movies
and TV shows, and I never really had the acting bug.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
My brother got that.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I was more like love storytelling, and so I knew
I wanted to get into entertainment. And out of college
I sold a show and this at the time, I
sold it to a company called Emi, which you're probably
very familiar with. Course, this was in the heyday of
like DVDs, and so twenty two sold my first show
and that got me kind of started in animation.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
It was an animated show.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
What do You Resist Around?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
This was two thousand and three, okay, thousand and three.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, So it was you know, I'd grown up my
mom's a pastor watching veggietails, and I was like, oh,
what are all these kids going to do when they're
done watching Vegietails? So I made something a little older
and it was like action adventure and we ended up
selling you know a ton of DVDs and and that
kind of launched my career and animation show.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, it's kids show.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
That was just v DVD straight to DVD, and we
even came out like our own toy.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And how did you sell that? Give me the process?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, I came up, came up with an idea, and
I went to a Brookstone and bought one of those
talking photo albums and I had friends record dialogue and
it was just you flipped the album, you hit play
on the thing. I think people mostly use them for
like family albums, but this was my idea. And then
I sent it to the president of em I c
MG in Nashville.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
How did you get to the president?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I just looked up the address and sent it.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I mean I think I'd read like maybe he'd done
an interview or had written in an.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Article and sent the book. Didn't think anything of it.
And then like two months later I got a call
and they were like, hey, we love this idea, we
want we want to fund it. And then I had
to pretty quickly figure out how I was gonna make
the show.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
So now you sell it, you get money to be
able to produce it. Yeah, well, the next steps. Did
you know anything about production?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I knew I'd been doing.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I'd been doing I've been working with some guys out
of Torrents And ironically the name of the company was
Backyard Entertainment.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So it was like fate was telling me what was
going to come later in life.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
And you know, this was early days of my NCG
animation and so you know, we decided like we were
going to try to produce this thing ourselves, which was insane,
and so we made the first one, did it ourselves.
We almost died making this thing, and then from there
we were like, Okay, we can't go through that again.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
And then Fox ordered more of them.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
You had a budget, and did you hire people that
knew certain aspects? How do you build a business like that?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
You know, I've often thought about this because my career
is so strange.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I started so young.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
My stepdad was an entrepreneur, and so that was I'd
always been around that like you just figure it out.
And so all my partners in the business we were
all the same age, we all went to college at
the same time, and I think we just had this
like naivete of like we'll just figure it out.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Naivete could be a beautiful thing in business.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
It can, it can it can also you know, it
can also get you into trouble sometimes. But I think
our you know, my philosophy in life is like activity,
like moving the ball forward is always more important than
being right. And the more choices you make, the more
things you push forward, the faster you learn. And so
I think like a lot of times people can get
(04:35):
paralyzed by analysis paralysis or I don't know this, I'm
not qualified.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
A good job today is better than a great one tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, yeah, So I think I think we just kind
of had the belief that we could figure it out.
I mean we obviously we had been dabbling in CG animation,
so it's not like we didn't know that part of it.
We just hadn't done it at that scale. It's a
lot different to produce a thirty second spot or a
one minute spot than to do a full cartoon. And
that was that was the biggest learning curve in terms
(05:04):
of the business. You know, it was a relatively simple business.
It's it's like a you know, at the end of
the day, you're selling DVDs, right, So there were there
were you knew who your retailers were. You knew who
buyers were. We had a distributor and EMI and they
had confidence in the product. So I just had to
deliver a really good product.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And so for how well did you do that?
Speaker 3 (05:23):
We did that for four or five years and that
led us then to actually producing veggietails. And I think
there was a while there where we were like, okay,
this is it is not sustainable for us to do
this all in LA So we started to outsource part
of the production. We worked in Taipei, we worked in India,
and eventually, you know, this is where my Australian roots
(05:45):
come back into play. We found a studio in New
Zealand and we're like, okay, we need boots on the ground.
So I knew my director needed to live there. He
was about to have a baby and he and his wife,
so he was like, look, I I you know, I
want to kind of go somewhere that I can raise
a ca and and I was like, what about New Zealand.
They had you know, the dollar at the time was
like very low relative to the US dollar. They were
(06:07):
super competitive and there's a ton of con you know,
a ton of talent down there. Thanks to Peter Jackson
and they have a lot of schools and so we
set up shop in New Zealand and started producing more
of our own content. But then we also started doing
veggietails and then that led to us, you know, working
with Nickelodeon, and we produced a ton of content for
(06:30):
Nickelodeon and DreamWorks down in New Zealand was a Madagascar,
Kung Fu, Panda Famboy and Chump Chump Robot Verson. So
we did so we were translating the movies into TV
and this was a partnership between DreamWorks and Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon
had a great team in place, and you know, we
(06:50):
really convinced them that you know, we could bring Western
sensibilities to the comedy but with a price point that
really worked for them, and that was really compelling to them.
They were looking to get into either Australia or New
Zealand or somewhere you know, outside of where they were.
They were heavily in Asia and India, and I think
they wanted to you know, diversify a little bit.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And then how did you move it to and segue
into the game business.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So this is the theme of my career is.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So we brought in a big partner in Australia that
was like a big vertically integrated media company that was
funded by an actual like an energy company randomly, and
that business kind of went on through till about twenty thirteen,
and then I got recruited to go to Seth Green's
Stupid Buddy Studios. And I think because I had developed
(07:39):
a video game with Lance preeb who created Club Penguin
and sold that to Disney, I you know, really had
learned the licensing business from there, and I learned how
to not only sell a show, but then how do
you talk to toy companies, how can you get even
toy companies to help fund content? And so that process
with Lance, you know, helped open up a whole slew
(08:00):
of other doors for me in terms of understanding the
licensing business, understanding consumer products, and also how to get
shows financed. And Seth Green and Stupid Buddy recruited me
because they had a project that was very toyatic, and
so that started as a consulting arrangement and then eventually
I became head of development at Stupid Buddy Studios, which
(08:21):
is best known for Robot Chicken, but also does Crossing
Swords and you know a lot of more adult comedy.
And so I was there for seven years, and you
know a lot of the things I'd missed by by
running my own company for so long, I got to
build a much stronger network in terms of just industry
professionals and you know, the people that you probably would
(08:44):
have met if I'd started in a traditional like agency model.
A lot of people in my kind of position would
start at like an agency like WM ORCA, build their
network and then kind of evolve their careers from there.
I had sort of done the opposite. I started as
an entrepreneur and then was like, oh, I need to
build my network. I got to know more people. And
so Seth, you know, is a great calling card. He is,
(09:07):
you know, one of the nicest people in Hollywood. He's
been in Hollywood since he was seven. And anyone I
called was always like, anything I can do for Seth.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Now you're there. It's twenty thirteen, You now running a
entertainment company. Yeah, yeah, how long did you do that for?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So I did that until twenty twenty three, and so
I was there a long time, and I love Seth.
I think stupa Buddy is one of the most you know,
really original studios in LA I mean the fact that
they do their production in Burbank. They do stop motion,
which is very throwback. And again Seth just beloved. So
(09:44):
his network's incredible and it's a deserved reputation. I've in
all the years working with him, he never said an
unkind word to anybody.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
He's just a great guy.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
It's nice to hear.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And there I met Lindsay Barnett who was introduced to
me by a manager and I was developing a show
with Common and a playwright out of New York and
she was from Chicago. She had been teaching for eight
years in a refugee school and she let me know, Hey,
I'm starting a production company. I love this show. I
(10:15):
think my kids still being a second grade teacher, so
I could that my kids would love this. It was
a kid's show. And we got to know each other
really well. And the more I learned about what she
wanted to do, which is really build a production company
but own the IP. And at STUPI Buddy, we didn't
own most of our IP. We sold our shows to
Warner Brothers and Sony and et cetera. And so that
(10:37):
was frustrating because I'd come out of a world where
I own my IP, and I was like, oh, if
you have something successful, A, you just have a lot
more autonomy and B you can do more with the
projects and whereas when you sell it, you're really creating
a job for yourself and then you get some back end.
And so when Lindsay said, hey, I want to start
this company and I want to you know, build IP
(10:57):
and I can get it to market, that was really
a p F. And so, you know, I started with
Lindsay in early twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Four and what was the first show you did?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So the first thing we did was, you know, I
had I had grand plans of building this this slate
of projects and partnering with people, and she's like, hey,
by the way, I have this. You know, I'm about
to close on backyard sports and I you know, I'm
not a millennial. I'm a little older than that. So
I missed backyard sports growing up, and I didn't know
much about it. But the more she talked about it,
(11:29):
the more excited I got. And when I was at
Stupid Buddy, we got approached all the time to develop
content based on video games, and most of that content
is just it's not narrative. It's a mechanic. It's a
game mechanic, right, But this had like real character. There
are thirty original characters that people love. They grew up with.
These characters. They remind them of the kids they grew
(11:50):
up with. And when I saw that, and I was like, oh,
this is not only as a blove video game, but
this has legs to tell stories and we can really
build this into a full franchise of not only narrative franchise,
but it's very merchandizable and most importantly like it had
a great message. You know, it was way ahead of
its time when it came out in ninety seven, super
(12:12):
diverse cast equal boys and girls with equal playing ability.
You had to pick the boys and girls to be successful.
But it felt very organic and natural and so that
really has become the focus of the company.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Very cool. So where's the company now? What are you
guys doing?
Speaker 3 (12:27):
So we in the in I guess it's been about
fifteen months. We've launched video games across Steam, so we've
launched the original backyard. So the first job was like,
let's bring some of these retro titles back then. I'm
sure a lot of the people that work in this
building played as kids. But bring them back to modern devices.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
So video games they're all links now. They're no longer
going to game stop to buy your video game.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
You know, there's still it's still a billion dollar market,
but most of the market is now digital content. So
you're on your PlayStation, or you're on Steam, or you're
on the app store and you're just.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Downloading the game. You're not physically buying.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
There are still collectors that will that want to own
a physical copy of the game, but you know, I
have a PlayStation five that doesn't even have a port
to actually put physical product. All my games are are digital,
So I think from that standpoint, there's a lot less
friction now, you know. And for us, it was like,
let's service this millennial fan base that loves these games.
(13:24):
When we announced that Backyard was coming back last August,
we had two hundred and over two hundred articles written
in not just in video game magazines but TMZ people.
Rolling Stone did a cover like the amount of.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Love parents wanting your kids to play the game.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I think millennials being like, first of all, millennials just
want to play it again. They've it's been ten years
since since a backyard new backyard game has come out.
A lot has changed since then. And also millennials probably
wouldn't have been interested ten years ago, they would have
outgrown it, but now they are starting to have their
own kids. And I think there's also just a huge
hunger for nostalgia right now, like nostalgia sports and video games.
(14:01):
It's like that ven diagram that overlap with backyard sports
makes it an incredibly powerful piece of IP.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And so what are all your games right now?
Speaker 3 (14:10):
So we launched Backyard Baseball ninety seven on Well, first
on Steam and it went number one on Steam globally.
Then we launched on iOS, same thing, went number one,
was an editorial choice Editor's pick for iOS in the
App Store as well as in the Google Android Store.
And then three weeks ago we launched on Switch and
(14:32):
PlayStation five. So now really anywhere you play games, you
can play these games that take you right back to
your childhood.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
What makes one game stand out over another?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
You know, in the case of I think it's there's
so many genres, there's so many different games. I think
in the case of Backyard, I think what made it
good is a It was very accessible. So you got
a lot of sports games now that just require a
lot of what they call like finger karate, just a
lot of setup, a lot of time to learn. This
is a point and click game. It was made for kids,
and so I think first and foremost it's just very accessible.
(15:05):
Second thing is there's character. You pick your team. So
when you're gonna pick your team of let's say it's
a backyard baseball, you pick your team in nine players.
You're clicking on each of their faces and they're telling
you why you should pick them. It's just like being
in the backyard as a kid. And I think that
novelty of like, oh, this isn't like I pick the
Dodgers and I have all the Dodgers players, or I
pick famous baseball players. This is like you're picking kids
(15:26):
you don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You choose each other, you gut first pick and then.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
You see their stats and you're like, okay, I'm gonna pick.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You'd have the poor kid at the end, it doesn't
get picked.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
There's always the kid's usually probably, but the kid that
always gets picked first is Pablo Sanchez. And Pablo is
this little kid who does not look like an athlete.
He's got a little milk belly. We called a milk belly,
like the you know, the babies have the little baby belly.
He doesn't speak a word of English, and but he is,
without a doubt, the greatest video game athlete of all time.
(15:56):
And I've got a tattoo of Pablo on my arm right,
that's how much I love this character.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And there's something like he has this.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Joy and he expresses that joy in a way that
just comes through in the games. And I think these
kids captured the imagination of the millennials that grew up
playing the game, and they just like stayed in there.
And when you bring up any of these names, whether
it's Pablo Sanchez or Pete Wheeler who's the fastest player,
and you bunt and he gets on first every time,
(16:23):
like they just it's like the kids they grew up with.
And that's so powerful.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
How do you get the market to know the games
advertise your online is no longer? You know, do they
buy you know what they see it? Also in the
store is still yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I mean I think I think I've worked on a
lot of ip you know, it's Super Buddy with Robot Chicken,
and we worked with Disney, and you know, I've worked
on a lot of stuff in my days in Nickelodeon
before that.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I ask you, this question has set you up to
sell you advertising? Yes, go on.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I have never seen a piece of IP that has
had the kind of traction we've gotten in just a
year in Backyard, and I think most of it's been organic.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
We don't do paid advertising.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
So whether it's Baker Mayfield for long not for long, Yes,
soon we'll be advertising on our heart radio.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Of course.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Baker Mayfield wore Pablo Sanchez jersey and threw five touchdowns.
Bobby Witt used a Pablo Sanchez bat and hit a
home run. The Mookie Bets wore a Pablo Sanchez hat
during the playoffs won the World Series. So we always say,
the power of Pablo is real.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I need one of those hats. There you go, all right, now,
I got my hat. This hat will help me. This
increase my radio.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I'm are going up, revenue is going up. Everyone's gonna
be like, what is it, Paul, something different? You look
great in at that. So this you know again, you
can't manufacture enthusiasm and passion. It's it's like either there
or it isn't. I think when you're creating something, that's
what you hope for. You hope that you hit a nerve.
(17:52):
And I think for us, what we've been able to
do is bring something back that's been gone. There's there's
a huge pent up demand. Before we announced that was
coming back, the Kelsey's were on New Heights talking about,
hey remember backyard sports, and that got a ton of traction.
And so I think we've been really fortunate that there
is a lot of pent up demand, a lot of enthusiasm.
(18:13):
And then going forward, I think we really believe content
is the most powerful form of marketing, whether it's putting
out these retro titles, whether it's making great social content.
Our social accounts have grown really quickly. Again all organically,
I think it's how do you create great content, how
do you be fans of your fans and really service
(18:33):
that passion, And then again, where do you want to
show up? And for us, increasingly, we want to show
up where families are. So we've got this weekend we're
going to be in Atlanta. We have a partnership with
Dave and Busters, so we'll be doing a backyard event
at Dave and Busters during the All Star Game in
Atlanta followed very quickly. We're doing a backyard night.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It really, it's what it's all about. Yeah, the same
with us in a similar business and radio. Yeah, on
air talent. They are our best influencers and endorses, and
we do events and remotes, we bring them out. It's just,
you know, almost exactly the same thing as would you
do exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
And we're doing event at City City Park in with
the Mets on the twentieth, and on the twenty fifth,
we're taking over PNC Park with the Pirates and doing
a full backyard Night there.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So they'll be the games will be there, they'll be
using all the characters.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Like people love getting backyardified, they love getting drawn in
the style of backyard sports. And so that's why again
a lot of that traction that we get is celebrities
reaching out and be like, can you draw me in
that style? I want to be the backyard kid. And
so those are the kind of things, you know, dude,
perfect Nade a couple videos two weeks ago that that
you know, got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years
(19:46):
of just them playing the game. And so that's the
other thing is just it translates well to streaming and
to video because it's funny and these kids are making
errors and it's it's not a game of perfection. It's
a game of fun.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
So tell the audience how they could download or stream
the product.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Well, the easiest thing to do is go to backyard
sports dot com and there you'll find the games that
are available and links to whether it's Steam, iOS or console,
you'll be able to find the links to each of
the games and where you can find them. And then
you know, if they haven't come out yet, go to
Steam and wish list the games because that says a
lot to the publishers too, like, oh, there's a lot
of wish lists and you know, so that helps us
(20:21):
as well. If you're a fan of this series and
want more games and but backyard sports dot com or
follow us on backyard Sports Official on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Thank you so much. Once again, we're here with Chris
Water is the chief product officer of Playground Productions, and
he's relaunched a game that we all love, Backyard Sports.
If you're interested, as you said, go to backyardsports dot com.
Thank you so much Chris for being on.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Oh it's pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
This is Paul Corvino, Division president of iHeartMedia saying thank
you for listening to another segment of CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Listen to CEOs you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app
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