Episode 265 Snippets: Jordan Moore of USC Athletics

On episode 265 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil chatted with Jordan Moore, Chief Creative Officer and Broadcaster for USC Athletics.

What follows is a collection of snippets from the podcast. To hear the full interview and more, check out the podcast on all podcast platforms and at www.dsmsports.net

1. @njh287; www.dsmsports.net On episode 265 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil chatted with Jordan Moore, Chief Creative Officer and Broadcaster for USC Athletics. What follows is a collection of snippets from the podcast. To hear the full interview and more, check out the podcast on all podcast platforms and at www.dsmsports.net. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

2. Jordan’s Career Path “I've been out in Los Angeles for more than half my life now, so I guess I think of myself as a Los Angelino. But I was born and raised in New Jersey, so all the way on the other coast. I grew up as a Big Ten fan, as a New York fan — Yankees, Giants, Rangers, Knicks, those are all my teams, a huge northeast sports fan in that sense. But I always knew what I wanted to do and that was to be a broadcaster, so when it came time to go to college, I really just looked at the schools that had the best broadcast journalism departments that were also paired with major sports schools. Ultimately, Syracuse and USC are really the two there. And I thought it was time to get out of the northeast and try something different, so I found the warm weather in Los Angeles and and never left. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

3. “Great timing when I got to USC in 2001, that was the same year Pete Carroll got to USC, so my four years were pretty awesome in college culminating in the 55-19 National Championship game over Oklahoma down in Miami, one of the great weekends of my life. Then, you know, I went straight into broadcasting, called Minor League baseball for three years out here, independent league, called high school football, high school basketball — called anything I could possibly get someone to pay me to do, and then made a little bit of a pivot. I had been writing my own blog at the time, back when blogs were a thing that people did, mostly just to have fun with it. But I had a lot of people at USC that knew me and were reading it. So when Pete Carroll went to the Seahawks, he took his social media person with him and USC thought of me. So I interviewed with other candidates, but ultimately got that job and kind of made a little bit of a career pivot, focusing on the social media stuff. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

4. On getting experience and skills both in broadcasting and what he would tell an aspiring broadcaster today “I probably could have done more in college. Looking back on it or just now that I've been here as a worker and I've seen how some of these incredible overachievers as students on a day in and day out basis, I think I was sort of an achiever, not under or over during my time here. But yeah, I definitely got reps, mostly with the student radio station, calling a lot of college baseball, some basketball, some football, talk radio show, things like that… Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

5. “But I think I really cut my teeth probably after USC in Minor League baseball. And, you know, the reason is it's not so much about baseball, it's that baseball's the hardest sport to call because it's just you and the mic and the game. So really, by comparison, basketball and football are easy having called all three — and baseball, I think it was 80 game seasons in that independent league, it's all you, it's just you for four hours and every now and then I have a color commentator but a lot of solo broadcasts as well, and you got to figure it out and you got to make it work. That's how you learn. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

6. “And the truth [about] getting into the broadcasting business is changed a little bit. I don't know if if Minor League baseball is necessarily the first job that that everyone's going to do. I think probably this day and age, the first job everyone's going to do is podcasting, because it's something that kind of everyone can do. But whatever it is, it's just getting reps. That is the only way to get better at this. Like, I went to one of the most prestigious communication schools in the country at USC, but I didn't learn anything about being a play-by-play guy…Most schools do not teach that. The only way to really learn it is to do it. So that's the trick, you know… I mean, I was calling high school basketball games from the stands, sitting next to the parents. This is not fancy stuff at all, but it doesn't really matter what it is. It's fun as long as people are passionate about it. But even if they aren't, if you're able to just do it, you just got to get the reps because that's the only way you're going to get better.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

7. About his hybrid role as a top broadcaster and social media leader for USC “I mean, it just sort of came about there were sort of two parallel lines that happened. And listen, the truth of all business and broadcasting is certainly no different. When you're looking to get hired at something, it is always going to be a little bit more about who you know than than what you know. So just being here at USC, I was able to create relationships so that when openings happened and they knew I had this ability I was able to seize those opportunities. That's typically what happens. I mean, I always say that very few broadcasting jobs are hired by broadcasters. So then ultimately they're hired by people that don't have the ability or the background to do it. So what are they looking at? Okay, maybe they have an opinion. They are a sports fan, they have an opinion who sounds good, who doesn't, but pretty much everyone sounds good on their tape. Everyone's reels, for the most part, sound pretty good. So ultimately it's going to come down to relationships. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

8. “I think just, you know, the uniqueness of my role just goes hand in hand with the fact that I've dedicated more than half my life to this institution, so I have a lot of relationships with people inside of it and our fans and our donors and all those people, as well, and our coaches. So just building trust and building those relationships and then, you know, once you get the gigs, proving you can do it, that's where the productivity needs to come in, and that's where the ability needs to come in, and you get the opportunity. Now you have to prove that you're worthy of it.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

9. How the social media function developed for USC Athletics “I think at USC it was really born out of football first. Football had started what was called then the Ripsit blog, and that was sort of how it started. Then they really built a lot of it out of Pete Carroll's personality. He was so open and modern, if you will. So the initial accounts were his YouTube channel, his Twitter handle, he was one of the early sort of social media celebrities in that sense. So the issue was that when he left, it left with him. So the first thing that I was really tasked to do was build it around USC Athletics, USC Trojans as a brand. As I said, back then, really the first focus was on building out a Facebook page and then the sort of daily blog coverage, and immediately the priorities changed to go from being sort of this inside football blog to being this all athletics blog. And that was really at the behest of the athletic director, Pat Haden at that time, who came in almost at the same time that I did, so he was just getting started. We sort of made that shift to like, okay, this is going to cover all of athletics, it's not just going to cover football. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

10. “But yeah, I mean, those early days, it was me as the Director of Social Media and then two video people, and we were separate from SIDs. I mean, obviously we worked with [them], but at that point there were no sport accounts, so they didn't really run social media very much, they were really doing classical SID work. They've now since become a much larger part of the social media organization that we have today, but at that point in 2010, that was not the case. And it just sort of grew slowly from there, mostly because it's what the teams demanded. Recruiting was obviously the biggest thing that brought it to life. This sense of if you're good at this, recruits will go to your school. I've never actually bought that theory, but it's been very good for my business. So, you know, we sort of look at some other key indicators for success outside of just recruiting, but it's a big part of it, and it's a huge part of why the staffs have grown. “Those early days the skill to have was writing, and I still think it's a hugely important skill in this business. But if you were to say, what's the one skill that you needed to succeed in social media back then it was the ability to write because, you know, whether it was a blog or whether it was Twitter, it was very text-based.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

11. On building a social media staff for college athletics “So, you know, as my title of Chief Creative Officer, all it really means is I lead our creative team here for the athletic department. So that guides our athletics account and then every sport account, with the exception of football. So football has a five person creative team, which is separate from us. They have two video, two design/photo and one social kind of thing. So they have five people that sort of divide those responsibilities. We work hand in hand with them, but they’re sort of part of a separate structure from us. Our structure, besides myself, has two full time social media people, and then also has an in-house team reporter who sort of has a more modern version of that blogger role that I discussed earlier. Then we have four video positions, three graphic design positions, two photographers who are technically independent contractors, but they are really part of our team, and then there's eight — SIDs are now called Brands and Communications. They still have their PR comms role, but some of them also have social media responsibilities. So there's eight of them as well. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

12. “So that's what makes up our team and then we have an army of students as well. I mean that's part of working in college athletics is having a student staff too. So if you have really talented students, they can play a major role in your organization, at least for a time being. That's sort of our group as it sits, which is a far cry, certainly, from what it used to be. In terms of where that sits compared to the quote unquote competition, I mean, a lot of that sort of depends on how many student athletes you're serving and how many sports. I think that’s pretty standard where we were at, maybe on the high side in terms of Pac 12. Now we're headed over to the Big Ten. You know, some of these schools like Ohio State, Michigan, they have bigger staffs than we do. They also service more sports than we do and more student athletes than we do, so those those are a little bit bigger, I think, than our staffs if you were to look at the directory. But I'll know more about the Big Ten this time next year.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

13. On allocating resources and priorities across the many sports and student athletes they support “What we've done here over the last couple years and how things have changed, we went from what I would call a production based model to an individual sport model. The way it used to be, we were like a production house, so you would say like, oh, hey, we need a lacrosse video and then it would just go in through the video team and somebody would do it and spit it back out. And then the next time you need a lacrosse video, somebody else would do it. And so what we've changed now in the sort of individual sport model, teams, pods, whatever you want to call it — every single sport knows who their social media person is, who their SID is, who their graphic designer is, who their video person is, so you have that little mini team within your larger creative team. Those groups are meeting and they're coming up with their content calendars and their ideas, and they're working hand in hand with the coaching staffs and the players, and so what what you create is not just having SIDs embedded in programs, but everybody is. So our graphic designer knows the student athletes and our video people are traveling and are part of the team and know all the stories. That familiarity has really led to much greater success, particularly on our individual sport accounts.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

14. On whether SIDs contribute to a team’s social media and content “Ultimately we don't want SIDs to be the content creators. We want them to serve as the ideas, and we want our video, photo and design staff to create the content and raise the level of it. So, you know, we will travel, depending on the sport, different people. That's sort of up to the sport a little bit in terms of what they value, whether it's video, whether it's photos, whether it's social, SID, whatever it is. So the travel piece sort of depends on the sport. But yeah, ultimately we want the content to be of the highest level. So we have sort of trimmed down on this, kind of guerrilla — Hey, I'm here, I got this stuff — and make it a little bit more strategic and planned. It doesn't mean we're not using our phones a ton to create content, we are, but even then, we want it to be purposeful, so there's a reason we shot it with a phone. I mean, the reason we created this model is so that instead of going, Hey, I didn't want to bother anybody or, Hey, you know, I didn't know who to go to, you know exactly who to go to and they're not bothered. So we make sure that the people that are really good at what they do, do what they do.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

15. On teams enabling student-athletes to create content for the team social accounts “If it's student-athlete-generated content then that's a whole nother piece of it. I mean, the whole space is because of the Collab tool, particularly on Instagram, has allowed for so much more collaboration than it used to. I mean, I think the Collab tool on Instagram has been one of the truly pivotal moments in this business over the last decade because, you know, Instagram used to be so siloed, and now we can share in it. So we very much encourage our student athletes to be content creators themselves if that's something that they're interested in. We don't want anyone who isn't interested in it to do it. But social media is a participatory sport for sure, and that's something that we express to them. So we love to collab with our athletes. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

16. “And yeah, in terms of the type of content, I mean, we are all for TikTok dances and, you know, whatever's trending and whatever is capturing the imagination of a social media audience. I have no particular interest in making our grid look perfect in those kind of ideals. I know that's something that you see sometimes where it's just like, Oh, we're not going to do that because it doesn't look [good], I get maybe if you're Nike or something like that, then that matters to you. I don't think in the college athletics space that that is a major priority for us. We're a little bit thinking more on a post to post basis; you know, will this perform, will it not? Does it meet our strategic goals? Those kind of things rather than, you know, is it pretty enough to be in our grid.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

17. On the strategic goals Jordan and his team have in mind for social strategy “It depends on the account. From an athletics side, we need to make sure we handle all the revenue pieces that come with college athletics. It is a business. So we do a ton of corporate integration, we do a ton of trying to get people to games, and, you know, what's our marketing campaign and strategies? We do a ton of storytelling and narrative pieces and brand building and all those kind of things, so our athletics [account] sort of serves as a central business hub in a lot of ways. Then on the individual sport accounts, you know, we're really focused on telling the stories of our student athletes in multiple ways. We obviously want to celebrate excellence, we want to celebrate winning — those things are very important to USC. And honestly, those are the things that that perform the best. But we also have a belief that if you make someone passionate about an athlete, or interested in an athlete, that you're more likely to participate in social media, coming to games, supporting that team. The student athletes are always going to be what drives the machine around here. So, you know, those are the biggest goals from the individual sport accounts. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

18. “We do a ton of recruiting stuff for the individual sports. It's not always public, you know, some stuff we will do and put it out there for everybody, but some stuff is going to be personalized or at least individualized in the sense of it's for an audience of one and that's messaged directly to them or messaged out in whatever way the team does. So we're a major part of that recruiting machine, sometimes publicly, sometimes a little bit more privately.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

19. On audiences and demographics Jordan has in mind for social media efforts “There is content that is so good that whether you're 8 or 80, it resonates. So that's for sure. There is content that just sort of works for everybody. But we absolutely think about the demographics; by platform is an easy way to do it for sure, because you can see the data that, you know, certain generations use certain platforms. But ultimately, yeah, our audience is our fans and you would theoretically hope the ticket buying fans. So the people I'm most interested in are the are the parents and the families who are going to drive up from Orange County or around Los Angeles and come to games or are going to go to alumni bars around the country and go to viewing parties or going to buy merchandise or participate in some way and be prideful of being a Trojan. So that's my biggest audience. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

20. “Social media is a shotgun, it's not a sniper rifle. Sometimes I try to explain that to people [and] we'll get somebody that says, Oh, I want to get this message to students and, you know, let's put it on the athletics account. And I'm like, well, that's a really small percentage of the athletics account. How many students actually follow it? And then of that, what percentage is that of our total following? So I don't want to alienate 95% of of our followers with any post. Obviously when you run something like an athletics account, you know, not everyone's going to be interested in everything and that's just the way it is. The sport accounts are going to have a little bit of a higher interaction rate. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

21. “But, you know, you definitely do think about demographics. And that's why I do prefer to focus the recruiting strategy as much as we can on direct to consumer, if you will, because I think if you're gearing your account to 16 year old boys, it's going to be very specific. So there's certain content we need to make for that audience, but that just may not resonate with a 45 year-old, parent with two kids. So we do try to service the wider audience instead of the smaller one on social.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

22. On balancing working on the public-facing content alongside all the non-public content going out to recruits and not burning out their staff “In some ways, yeah, I think the leadership, from my perspective, the important part is constantly checking in with my creatives to make sure that they're not overloaded because I might not see the overload. So to the point, you know, if you want to call it the dark content or whatever it is, I'm not going to necessarily see it where it's just like, Hey, we didn't put anything out in this account today, it doesn't look like you're doing anything. So if what you're doing is making 25 recruiting graphics, well, that's a ton that you're doing. So, you know, making sure that that piece is communicated on their side. I think what's important is to streamline things as much as possible, put practices into place. Just as an example, we use a company that we send our photos to that cuts out all our athletes so that our designers don't spend a lot of time cutting out athletes so that it's just sort of done for them. So, you know, you look for processes like that to streamline things. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

23. “Then on the team side, it's again, when we create this personal nature of not faceless people working for you, but so and so is working for you then it helps being like, Hey, we can't do every single thing right now, or I need more of a heads up — that's something we push on a lot of people are like, Hey, you knew that this was, we knew signing day was coming for months. So if we have the athletes sign, let's get all the information so that we can make the graphics when we're ready and not the night before. So there's a lot of conversations like that. But I think most of our teams are pretty forgiving when it comes to to that and understanding that it takes time to make graphics or videos or what have you and we just try to schedule things out as much as possible so that our creatives don't get burnt out, because that is the biggest issue in this industry is burnout.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

24. On maintaining a consistent USC brand while giving teams some creative agency to be unique “I think the answer is always both. We have created strict brand guidelines. That's something we have done over the last five, ten years, so that there's sort of a clear playbook on what's allowed and what's not allowed. So we have solved some of those things where people were taking our logo and putting palm trees behind it and then it becomes the beach volleyball logo — that's not happening anymore. We try to be pretty strict on some of those things so that our brand is not being bastardized in any way. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

25. “With that said, we also want the individual creativity of the designers and the creative teams around the individual teams and then also the voice of the programs are just going to be different in so many ways, I mean, our football program as an example is such a legacy brand. [It’s] been around for 100 years and national championships and Heisman Trophy winners, so there's a certain voice that comes out of that account that is just different than our men's basketball brand, which has kind of always been the second team in town to to UCLA and never historically has won anything, so we take a little bit of a chippier, edgier tone to our content. You know, we are much more likely to poke at UCLA. On the football side, there's would be no reason to sort of stoop down to it kind of thing. So those are the ways that you that you look at it and, again, I think what often gets confused — none of this is my opinion or my voice. This is what the brand would sound like if the brand had a voice. That's the goal at least. The voice that is coming from each individual account that’s ultimately the goal. The brand has to have a uniformity across the board so that you always know you're looking at a USC page, whether you're looking at beach volleyball or lacrosse or football or whatever. But within that, I think we provide a lot of latitude for different looks each year, different looks within each season and just allow the creatives to to be creative and nothing to get stale.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

26. On the rise of athlete brands and how it affects long-term fan development and coverage “Constantly, that is what we think about. I mean, that is the challenge of the job, for sure. You said it extremely well. I'm not sure that I have every single answer there, but that is absolutely the challenge. I mean, there's a very obvious use case going on right now for us. In May, we had 50,000 Instagram followers on our men's basketball account. It's now January, so seven months or eight months later, we have 162,000 followers. I would love to tell you that is because of some great strategy that myself and Aubrey Craig and Rich Rodriguez and the people that run this account did. And it's not, it's because we signed Bronny James and Bronny James brought with him 100,000 fans to our account and counting. So that's absolutely the challenge. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

27. “We we go into the content and we know that we're not going to be a Bronny James account. So these people are going to see him in one out of every five posts, one out of every ten posts for a while when obviously he wasn't even playing. So, can you sell your culture, your team, your program, your school, everything that's exciting? Can you sell, so these people don't go away in a year. Some of them probably are going to, whenever he leaves. But I think if the program does well and carries on and is successful — what he has then done for us is create this cachet and made our program cool in a way that it wasn't cool before. And, you know, we can benefit off that. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

28. “But I will always tell you that the student athletes are bigger than our accounts. It's just a fact, and it's certainly true in Bronny's case. But, you know, we have a women's golfer name Amari Avery; she has like six times the followers that our women's golf account does, she's big time. She's got a Bank of America deal, like, she's legit, So [student athletes] our greatest ambassadors, but they're also the reason that, if we do create things, we just continue to stay tapped into them. We do a ton with our alumni; like, we will follow Bronny into the NBA, we will follow Amari into the LPGA, we'll follow JuJu [Watkins] into the WNBA whenever that time comes. So hopefully there's sort of a lifetime commitment, this whole idea of you're a Trojan for life. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

29. “We do a ton of that. I mean, we did a post yesterday celebrating Taj Gibson. I mean, that's the guy that played basketball here 15 years ago, right? But we're still trying to stay tapped into that relationship and hopefully those fans too. So we'll create a lot of content around those kind of things to stay tapped into those people. But ultimately you are using their platform to sell your program. And we constantly have conversations about, Hey, if you have an opportunity like a Bronny, you have to capitalize on it, because a year from now you might have 12 guys that no one's ever really heard of and then are you back to square one or did you accomplish something?” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

30. “…The Warriors are a great example of somebody that's actually done it. And one of the things that they did was they parlayed their current popularity into overseas popularity and sort of became the team of a lot of countries around the world kind of thing. So, anyway, that's a good example of like, Hey, we've got this moment right now with Steph and and Draymond and Klay and we're winning titles, okay, what are we going to do with it? You know you're always going to be popular in San Francisco, but they found a way to extend their audience.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

31. On the announcement of USC moving to the Big Ten Conference and what the preparation is like “I mean, that moment was wild. I'll never forget being on a Zoom and having that news delivered to me because I was in the know at that time because we had to create a graphic as part of the announcement, so we got to sort of find that out early. It was shocking for sure. And listen, the whole thing is bittersweet. We love the Pac-12. We love the rivalries and the relationships that we've created here. It's really a shame the way it’s sort of gone down in a lot of ways and a bit of a failure of leadership at times, certainly, that has created this situation. So with that said, you know, USC made the early decision to make that move in this game of musical chairs got its spot secured before the competition did and wisely did, and so now sits in a pretty advantageous spot in what will be one of the two biggest conferences in the country going forward. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

32. “We'll see what the future holds. Everything seems to change year to year, maybe even day to day these days. But, you know, looking forward to what the Big Ten brings. I think the biggest thing from our perspective is the broadcast exposure. That's where the Pac-12 just really struggled. The Pac-12 network was pretty much a disaster. Actually, they created really nice content, so certainly give them credit. All those people that were involved, that did the work, were very good at their jobs. But they never got the distribution deal really done, so we were invisible when we played on our conference network, and that was very difficult from a brand and social standpoint, a lot of different standpoints around here. That makes it difficult when games are happening and no one can see them, or they basically don't exist. Even then, the television deal was not particularly great. A lot of late nights, a lot of weeknights kind of situation where it just felt like you were playing when everyone else was asleep. I think there will still be some of that. I think ultimately you're always going to be in the Pacific Time zone and that provides another window for the television companies to use. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

33. “But the Big Ten is just a massive television platform. The Big Ten Network is a well-oiled machine. I think it's nice that we're going in with some West Coast partners in UCLA, Oregon and Washington so we can continue those relationships. But, you know, you look at our football schedule for next year, and it's exciting. I mean, there's no other way to put it, when you see Michigan and Penn State and Wisconsin on your schedule, you're fired up. We're opening with LSU in Vegas. We're playing Notre Dame still. We're playing UCLA still. We're playing at Washington. So the schedule is loaded, and that's just football. A bunch of our sports obviously are going to be a part of this and will get to compete in the premier conference in the country in many sports. Women's volleyball is going to be a great example; you know, Pac-12 [volleyball] is good, the Big Ten is next level when you're talking about programs like Nebraska that sell out football stadiums for women's volleyball. So it's going to be exciting, it's going to be eye opening. It's going to be challenging, but, you know, all of that's fun.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

34. On saying farewell to the Pac-12 “I think what's awkward about it is there's a little bit of a crossover season because, to be honest, as a football program and a lot of ways, we're already in the Big Ten because our last Pac-12 season is over. Our Big Ten schedule is out and when you look at selling season tickets and those kind of things, we're selling the Big Ten. But we're not not officially in the Big Ten yet, that doesn't happen until later in the summer. So yeah, I expect to do all of those things, the great opportunities to lean into what we're best at, which is paying tribute to our history and then also setting the stage for exciting days to come. But, you know, I do look forward to sort of that being over and we can just fully lean in to the to the Big Ten side of it because, for us, it's been a little while now. As I mentioned, we sort of secured our spot early, so we've had this in the back of our mind for a while and I'm excited for it to be in the front of our mind. And yeah, that'll be that'll be what our 2024-25 strategy is built around — the excitement of going to a new conference.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

35. Jordan’s favorite broadcaster growing up and his favorite broadcaster today “I think my favorite broadcaster growing up was Keith Jackson. As I mentioned, I grew up on Big Ten football and was a diehard Michigan fan as a kid, so that sort of Saturday afternoon ABC game and then ultimately him calling the Rose Bowl — that's the kind of thing where it's like, yeah, he’s one of my favorites, but I can never do it, you know what I mean? He was so unique and so fantastic; hard to compare with that. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

36. “I think so many of the guys now are fantastic. I'll shout out to the two guys that we see a bunch out here who FOX has used as their tentpoles now, I think, both Kevin Burkhardt and and Joe Davis are fantastic to lead the the new era. We've had guys like Jim Nantz and Joe Buck are great and have been around for a long time and have sort of just been here for generations now. But I do think it's exciting that those two guys have sort of earned their spot. I’ve gotten to know Joe a little bit. Just really two super-talented guys.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

37. Jordan’s favorite memory from his time calling games for the (indepdent league baseball team Orange County Flyers “The craziest thing about minor league baseball is the busses. I mean, the amount of time that you would spend on a bus. We never flew anywhere, we bussed everywhere, and the bus was was pretty beat up. You would bus from Yuma, Arizona, the hottest city in the country, which had a team in the league was in, and you bus all the way up to Reno, Nevada or Chico, California. So you're looking at like 12-hour bus rides. And our bus, if it was going uphill, it could only go 12 miles an hour. So it would just crawl up these hills. And then we'd have pockets where the bus would lose power, basically, so you had no air conditioning and guys are just sweating on the bus, and so everyone's just taking their shirts off and everyone's just gambling away their little per diem money that they have and just trying to make it through, and you're sleeping on the floor of a bus. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

38. “But you know, what I liked about it the most, is whether it was around the cage — I always sat at the front of the bus because I was lucky enough that that our coaches, our managers, were really experienced guys. I mean, my first manager was Garry Templeton. He was in one of the most famous baseball trades ever [when he was] was traded straight up for Ozzie Smith. And after that, Gary Carter was our manager, the late Gary Carter, who was a Hall of Fame catcher. We had Charlie Hough, the knuckleballer, was our pitching coach. So, you know, just getting to pick these guys brains. I mean, you're going to find out if you like sports or not when you work in a situation like Minor league Baseball. And for me, you know, I love it. I love the stories that they had to tell, so those were my favorite times.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

39. The number one tip you would give to a young aspiring sports broadcaster “As I mentioned earlier, the number one tip is to get reps. Call anything, anytime, anywhere. The only way to get good at this is to do it. I can't tell you how to get good at it. Simple as it comes. Don't focus on your dream job. Just make sure the next job is better than the last job you've got. I always say if your dream job was to be the LA Dodgers play-by-play guy, well, then you waited 60 years for the job to come open, so not a great plan. So don't get your heart set exactly on a place to be. You kind of have to be willing to go anywhere, do anything. But if you love it, it's worth it.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

40. The most important platform or channel to reach recruits and the most important platform channel to reach donors “I would say everything that we do in social media right now is based around Instagram. You know, Twitter was always my favorite platform. Now, it doesn't put up anywhere near the numbers that the other ones do. Facebook is still a massive powerhouse globally, so it has more value maybe than people give it credit for, but it doesn't resonate in a way that it did ten years ago by any stretch of the imagination. Instagram's the beast right now, I would say, for both fans and recruits. If you wanted to skew specifically towards recruits, I think TikTok is obviously the other platform that obviously has ignited that generation. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

41. “You know, the thing about TikTok…you can put up big numbers there. You can do some really cool stuff. It is a little bit specific to their platform, though. You kind of have to play their game, you gotta lean into the trends that are happening. It's a little bit less like, Hey, you can just create whatever you want and you determine what's cool. It's kind of like, Hey, you gotta hear what everyone else thinks is cool and then find your spin on it. “But yeah, I would say that Instagram is the central focus of what we do right now, and then TikTok is probably the one that is targeted directly towards the younger generation. But I still think Instagram is a massive part of that group too.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

42. The most impressive or memorable student athlete during Jordan’s time at USC so far “That's such a good [question]. And it shows my age because I've been here long enough to have met many extremely impressive ones. So many of them are impressive; you know, we had Jake Olson here, the blind long snapper, and he's such an just an impressive human being. But I'll call out two that I had a relationships with and that sort of what sticks with me. On court, we had a guy named Jordan McLaughlin, who's currently a backup point guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves, he's the most impressive, highest character student athlete that I've gotten to see in my time. You know, I'm obviously a big basketball guy, I'm the voice of the basketball team now. When he chose USC, we were just horrific, and he really had to sort of bet on himself and bet on a vision, and everything that we've accomplished since started with that decision. So it's people like that when you go how do you take a last place program — and the the year before Coach [Andy] Enfield came we were 6-26, so, you know, years later, we're in the Elite Eight and we have lottery picks coming out of our ears. And you just go, it's easy. It's not easy. And it happens because of people like JMac. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

43. “Then one of my early favorites, a guy who I remain close with, is Matt Barkley. He was sort of the first quarterback that was here when I started working here. And when you do what we do most people don't know who you are, or they know who you are, but don't really get what you do. There’s a few people who really get it, who take the time to know the staff and understand what they do, appreciate what they do — and Matt was always so tech savvy. So he was one of those guys in the early era that I just did a lot of work with, and he was always super into social media, took great advantage of of everything that we did here and, to this day, does anything that we ask him to do and is somebody you can always reach out to. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

44. “So those are two of the great guys, particularly from the early part of my career. But in terms of seeing incredible athletic feats, I mean, at a place like USC, you know, you're bumping into Olympians every single day and national champions and All-Americans and future pros. So I've gotten the opportunity to watch quite a few amazing athletes become what they are.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

45. The non-revenue sport that Jordan would most buy stock in to hold for the next five years in the US “That's a great question. I mean, I don't know, the answer is probably something like pickleball or something or what's that game I saw the other day where you're playing soccer, but you're playing it on a ping pong table (Teqball). I saw that blow up on my feed the other day…My initial reaction when you were going to ask me the sport that should be more popular than it is is beach volleyball. Beach volleyball is phenomenal sport to play, phenomenal sport to watch. You know, we've dominated it here over the last decade, but there still aren't a ton of schools around the country that play it and I guess maybe it's a little bit limited to the warmer weather places. But to me, that's the sport — every Olympics that pops off. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

46. “But anyway, I know that the [professional beach volleyball] tour doesn't do that well, so you're sort of asking a business question. From an entertainment standpoint, beach volleyball would be my answer. I do know that it doesn't do that well, though and the AVP has struggled and all of that. So I think it's a tough time for sports business, so it is hard to figure out what's going to go next. I mean, I guess if you were to look at the last five years, the answer would be Formula One, which obviously has nothing to do with college athletics. It has everything to do with what we talk about, though, access and social media and, you know, Netflix is sort of an extension of, social media in a lot of ways. That's how it happens, so it is the sports like pickleball, like [teqball], It's the ones that just sort of catch a fascination or you provide access or you create these characters. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

47. “But it is hard. I mean, you know, baseball's trending down. We think of the NBA as huge, but it still doesn't necessarily put up big numbers in the context of what the NFL does or even what college football does. You know, I'm involved in the college basketball world. It's massive one month a year; it's not going anywhere, but it's also not going up. You know, lacrosse expanded out here and was hot for a while, but has also sort of plateaued a little bit in the West, and it doesn't feel like it's taken off a ton. The PLL is cool, but again, like, is it truly going up? I think it's hard this day and age when when you don't really have a monoculture, when everything's just sort of niched to sort of to feel like something actually is blowing up.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

48. “The other answer, I would say at least around here, the growth of women's basketball is real. I think that the growth of women's basketball is real, particularly at the college level. Eventually that will spill hard into the WNBA, which ultimately needs more franchises and more cities and a longer season and a better television television contract and more exposure. And I think all of that's coming when you look at Caitlin Clark and JuJu Watkins, what's going on in South Carolina and what happens every year at Stanford and all these programs. You know, I was watching the other day, I'm sitting there watching Iowa-Ohio State women's basketball because it was the lead-in to the NFL playoff game on NBC and you go, that's how it's done. Then I saw a day later that that was one of the highest rated women's basketball regular season games since 2010. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

49. So how do you do it? You give real time slots. And everyone knows Caitlin at this point, and she delivers. I think she had 38 points or something in the game. And I'm sitting there with my son watching the game…you gave them a time slot where all these NFL fans, which is the only sport that really matters from a television standpoint, and you give them that time slot and you can see it. We played UCLA and had the largest crowd in our arena's history the other day and it's because of JuJu, it's because we're winning…That's a sport that is real for sure.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

50. The most important skill or skills that Jordan needs to do his job well “I said writing earlier, and I think that’s the sort of the baseline skill that I look for in a social media person. I don't necessarily know that it's the most important thing in a designer or a video person, although it doesn't hurt. So I think as a social media person, the ability to write, the ability to evoke emotion from words, is hugely important. For creatives, it's a talent. It's just a natural kind of you either have it or you don't. You know, you could teach yourself a lot of these skills, but the people that I've been around that are great at this, they have a talent the way that the basketball players have a talent; there's a natural creativity to them, and I've just been lucky enough to be surrounded by a lot of them. They do things with a camera or a software that I can never even dream of, so it's hard for me to explain how they do [what they do] any better than I can explain why an athlete is is able to do some of the things that they're physically capable of doing.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

51. The best meal to get in LA and where to get it “Food's the real passion of my life, so there's about a million different restaurants and things I could shout out in this city, but I'll shout out one of the OGs. One Of my favorite chefs is Roy Choi, who brought together this Korean Mexican fusion in LA, which has really been a major part of kicking off the food scene here. And those are the two sort of best food scenes in LA are the Korean food and the Mexican food, so combining the two — shout out to an OG in Kogi tacos and his whole spot. I'll give them a shout. But I could be here all day, there's a whole nother 90 minute podcast on food if you want.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

52. Jordan’s favorite NIL story or athlete or case study so far in that space “The first thing that comes to mind is simply that there's sort of two buckets of NIL. There's what I call real NIL and what I call fake NIL. I don't think there's anything particularly interesting or fun about the fake NIL. That's just sort of how it goes these days, which is, you know, someone goes in the [transfer] portal and they know they can get X dollars and they change schools. That’s not particularly sexy or fun, but that is just how business is done these days. But the real NIL to me is great and sort of the initial intention of it all, and I just think what stood out to me is how successful female athletes have been in this space. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

53. “I think everyone thought, Oh, it would be dominated by football, and it it has been in the fake NIL space. But I think when it comes to real NIL — you know, we don't have a gymnastics team, but I know a lot of those women are crushing. I mentioned Amari Avery earlier, a women's golfer who's done phenomenally well. We had Simone Jackson, who got a Nike deal, who's a women's soccer player for us. We've had track athletes that have done well. JuJu Watkins is a true star, as you mentioned, on our women's basketball team. So I just think in general, it's been fun to see the people that the market actually dictated what they're worth, as opposed to the separate market of like, what you're worth because we want you to win college football or college basketball games. “I get that, too, but the actual idea of NIL, I think, has been cool to see the people succeed that, that capture an audience in a different way than just being good at their sport.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

54. Who is on the all time USC Athletics Mount Rushmore? “I think I would do two football and I would probably have Marcus Allen and Reggie Bush; one sort of [from] the old generation of football and Marcus, probably the greatest player ever to play here, and then Reggie, sort of indicative of this new generation. I think the reason a lot of people are USC fans is Reggie Bush. So I think both of them need to be on there. I would put Cheryl Miller on there. Arguably the greatest women's basketball player ever, two-time national champion here at USC. That leaves one more spot for me. You know, it's funny. I mean, she didn't compete here, so I guess I can't put her on, but, I mean, really, Allyson Felix is kind of the fourth person that I would think of in that spot to sort of represent the Olympic sports and our Olympic heritage, which is something we take such pride in. So even though she didn't compete here, I probably would put Allyson in there as the most decorated female Olympian ever and most decorated track Olympian ever and a true Trojan in [that] our field is named after her.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

55. “…We've got some great baseball ones, too. I was going through it. I mean, Tom Seaver and Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson — so we have pretty great baseball heritage, too. Lots to choose from. And we mentioned beach volleyball earlier — April Ross won won two national championships in indoor here and then since became an American beach volleyball star. So just just too many to count.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

56. Jordan’s Social Media All-Star to Follow “I'll shout out a guy that I've been with from day one, he's @trojansphotog on Instagram and that's my photographer, John McGillen. When he came in, he was just a student in 2010. I think I'd been on the job for a couple months and realized that photos apparently were an important part of it and did not realize that and desperately needed a photographer and he just came in as a student, showed me a couple of things and I was like, great, you're hired. I will not say it was the most rigorous hiring process, but I stumbled into one of the best photographers in Southern California, for sure. John has shot for Adidas and the NFL and a bunch of other people as well. Everything we do starts with our media days and the photos that we take, and his ability to push himself creatively and capture new lighting and challenge himself and all the different colors and ideas that he comes up with — really super talented guy and has been a major part of everything that we do.” Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

57. Where to find Jordan and USC Athletics on digital/social media Jordan is @MooreSports on Twitter and @jojomo9 on Instagram USC is @USC_Athletics for the main account on all platforms and there are countless sports accounts. See a lot of Jordan on the USC Athletics YouTube channel! Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore

58. @njh287; www.dsmsports.net Thanks again to Jordan for being so generous with his time to share his knowledge, experience, and expertise with me! For more content and episodes, subscribe to the podcast, follow me on LinkedIn and on Twitter @njh287, and visit www.dsmsports.net. Best Of The Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast Episode 265: Jordan Moore