Kevin Jones on the Business and Growth Tactics of Sports Podcasts and the Blue Wire network

On episode 276 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil chatted with Kevin Jones, Founder and CEO of Blue Wire Sports podcast network

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 276 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil
chatted with Kevin Jones, Founder and CEO of sports podcast
network Blue Wire.
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 276: Kevin Jones

2. Kevin’s Career Path
“My dream always was to be a beat reporter radio host, and I went out and
did that dream for eight years as my first step in media. I worked in
Cleveland covering the Browns for ClevelandBrowns.com for the team,
worked in DC at a TV station where I was doing some on-air stuff and then
ultimately worked in radio at KNBR. So my career path, the first half of it
was interviewing players, writing articles, doing radio hits. That was
literally my dream since I was seven, eight, nine years old. So I went out
and did that.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

3. “I started really getting the itch for the sports business side, but I didn't
want to start all the way at the bottom of the totem pole, so I founded Blue
Wire six years ago just thinking that there can be more competition in the
podcast space in terms of publishers helping sports creators get going. I
had a podcast, I was really enthusiastic about podcasting. I thought it could
be a lot bigger than it was in 2018 years later. I really wanted to help sports
podcasters make more money, make great content and bring a network
together. It's really hard doing it by yourself, [so] how can you be a part of
a network and maybe see some advantages to that?
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

4. “So yeah, my background definitely informed me, like working at radio was
not the dream job I had hoped. The culture wasn't great at the radio
station. [To get] the opportunities you really had to have been there for 20,
30 years to really even be on air. So I just gravitated toward podcasting. It's
been a huge chapter in my career building Blue Wire, the business, and I'm
glad I got to live out my dream interviewing KD and Klay and Steph Curry.
I was there when Colin Kaepernick took a knee, I was there for Bryce
Harper's first game. I saw RG3’s rookie season, and I made some friends in
the agent world and the athlete world along the way that I'm still in contact
with a lot of those people.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

5. On what content strategy was like when he was working in the media
before Blue Wire
“So I mentioned my previous jobs, I was always contributing to web traffic,
so I knew web traffic really well. But that started to kind of die down in the
Facebook [era] when that peaked in 2016, 2017. You know, I'm wearing
Apple AirPods right now, I think they helped really change the game in
terms of consumption. It made people want to listen more because we're so
glued to our phones listening. think sports is so valuable, but the pregame
shows and SportsCenter, they'll always be there, but I don't think they're
exciting for people to watch. People are gravitating towards personalities
right now.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

6. To answer your question right on the head, and kind of what I identified
after working in media for a long time is like, it doesn't really matter about
your brand as the radio station, it matters much more about who the
personalities are representing your brand. Are they engaging? Are they
good at digital? You can't just have a podcast, you've got to be getting likes
and retweets on X. You have people building their own media empires
right now. They're mini, they're not massive media empires that are worth
$1 billion, but creators in all different kinds of subjects and sports
especially. So I thought those people are really creating high engagement,
traffic is leaving websites, eyeballs are leaving the SportsCenters, the cords
are cutting.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

7. “So I think we're in this personality-driven era right now for sports
podcasters, whether it's Pat McAfee, you have all these athlete podcasters
who I'm working with: Jake Paul, Logan Paul, Cam Newton. People are
picking their favorite personalities. People are picking their favorite topics,
the Warriors, the Yankees. — and instead of following the beat reporter,
they're following their favorite Warriors podcast because Sam and Andy,
they trend on Twitter. Scott and Andrew, the Yankees podcasters, they're
delivering the fan perspective. A lot of the beat reporters don't say their
true feelings, so I think people want to see people's personalities there.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

8. They can get their news anywhere in an instant, It doesn't have to be a hot
take, but what is it? Is it X's and O's? Are they sarcastic? Are they
predicting different trades that are going to happen? Our wrestling guy
Chris Van Vliet, he flies in and interviews Rey Mysterio Jr and Undertaker;
like, what is your separator? How is it personality driven? How are you
getting a digital engagement? Everyone's doing a little bit differently, but
that's what I saw. That's what I thought that I could group together by
these pockets of really interesting people producing sports engagement,
let's put it on one team. Let's measure it all together. This engagement is
really special.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

9. On personalities driving consumption and engagement more than
information now

“I was at the radio station and they were like, ‘Go write articles about
what's happening at practice.’ And it's like, I don't think people really care
about exactly what's happening. They want to know what I think's going to
happen next after watching the practice or, you know, finding their own
unique angle. I'll keep going back to our Warriors podcasters Sam and
Andy with their show called Light Years. They were the first podcast I
added to the network back when I founded Blue Wire, and I had that aha
observation watching them as I was actually at the game in front of Steph
Curry talking to him. They were getting way more retweets, way more likes.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

10. “So I think fans are actually relating to other fans now of the game. Like
you said about the Bill Simmons angle, people have taken that to the local
level and they're more snarky about the team. They don't have all these
sources they're going to piss off. They don't have to face the team every
day. They're kind of doing this from their own homes. When you don't have
to look at someone every day, you'll say a little bit more. what you want to.
And I think that's where we're replacing talk radio a little bit at Blue Wire.
That old vibe of, after a tough loss, you could listen to a sports radio show
in the early 2000s, and there was elation after a big win or after a loss,
people were really upset and they could vent. A lot of our guys go live after
a game noon YouTube and people are leaving comments and they're
reacting live to the comments.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

11. “So I think the content is kind of similar to what it was 20 years ago, but
the way we're delivering it is so much more different. And the people who
get to be involved, there used to be three radio chairs an hour, now the
cream rises to the top. Who's interesting, entertaining, really good at
digital? They're going to have the biggest audiences. So yeah, I keep
thinking of our Warriors show as they were on the early edge of changing
things. And now you have Cam Newton, now you have Jake Paul and
Logan Paul building their own.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

12. “Logan Paul doesn't appear on any other podcasts, he just does his own.
You know, a lot of people are like, ‘Why am I going on all these shows? Let
me just have my own platform here, and make money on it.’ I think that's
kind of the future. Cam Newton used to appear on the radio show, now he
has his own podcast. You got to blend the athletes where they used to
appear. They have their own channel and the fans are kind of taking over
for the radio hosts, so we’re kind of blending both of those worlds together
at Blue Wire, and not many people are doing local and national together.
That's been our sweet spot doing both.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

13. Defining what a podcast is
“I think of a podcast actually as a podcaster, and this podcast is audio only,
but a lot of podcasts are now becoming video-first. A podcast is a show.
And so the podcaster is the star of the show, they have their own topic that
they talk about, they have their own release cadence. So I think of these as
mini shows. Outside of First Take and SportsCenter, there's not a lot of
shows, that world's getting disrupted, cable TV, cable news. Instead of
tuning into that, people are picking their favorite personalities, their
favorite podcasters, and consuming their content.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

14. “I follow hundreds of different podcasts, actually, but just their clips of the
show. So I think that's another way to be a podcast consumer. You can
have favorite podcasters that you don't even listen to the full thing
regularly, but you're following what they're doing, you know some of their
hot takes when they go viral. So I think it's this whole ecosystem that
people are paying attention to. Yes, everyone has their favorite couple of
shows that they tune into regularly, but I think more and more people have
ten, 20, 100 shows that they're paying attention to because the podcaster is
interesting.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

15. “There's now clips of it all everywhere, and it's this whole media ecosystem,
especially when you're talking about the YouTubers. Traditional media
personalities, they're not making a lot of new ones anymore. They're all
YouTubers now. They're all up-and-coming podcasters or athletes. Yes,
there are some people from local news who break out and go to Good
Morning America or whatever, but the number one [desired] job for a
nine-year-old in the country right now is to become a YouTuber. There's
something special happening on that platform, specifically. Combined with
podcasts and social media, it's just a whole new ecosystem and a way to
consume stuff. So a podcast to me is a show. The podcasters are our new
digital creators, and people are paying a lot more attention to this part of
the media ecosystem.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

16. An overview of Blue Wire and what the company does and produces
“So my insight when I first founded the company is that podcasting was
built at the beginning for Joe Rogan, Guy Raz, some of these really big
shows, just the 1%. I thought there could be a sports-specific network, and
maybe bigger than sports one day but so far it's just been sports and
culture, where we're looking outside the top 1% of shows. We help
podcasters make more money. Very simple to it. We take over the ad sales
for them, we become their business partner, we give them content
strategies on how to grow their audience.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

17. “We have 250 different podcasts on Blue Wire reaching reaching about 13
million monthly downloads worldwide. We're roughly the 17th or 18th
largest podcast network in the game. There are definitely bigger ones than
us. Our competition is iHeart and SiriusXM and Cumulus and Barstool.
The Volume with Colin Cowherd is a new one the last couple of years. You
have Dan Le Batard's network. There's fierce competition, but at the end of
the day, our brand is more about the creators. We don't have one person
like a Bill Simmons leading the way. On the content side, we have a
portfolio of content. We have a Mount Rushmore of different shows that
we champion.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

18. “We're built kind of from the bottom up. We started with just one show, my
podcast, in 2018, and now are one of the biggest networks in the game. So
it's been awesome having these big names choose us. But we are for the
common fan, too. We like you to have 25,000 downloads per month as a
bare minimum to work with Blue Wire, so unfortunately, we do turn a lot
of people down who we'd love to work with, but we're really focused on that
mid to upper-sized podcaster in sports and culture and how do we become
their business partner.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

19. On the path to podcaster and social media often starting podcasts vs. the
other way around
“You did it the hard way. We definitely prefer the other way where they're
already making content, at least on one social platform. For sports,
preferably X, that's a pretty good indicator if you have a big X following
and it's engaged that that that has good tailwinds for us where we think
you can build an audience. That being said though, like there's some people
who start with the podcast first, the podcast is what the creator digital
creator should be gravitating towards. We let our creators own their IP.
They cannot own their Twitter audience. They cannot own their YouTube
audiences. Right? Who knows?
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

20. “I don't think ten years from now those platforms go away. But if they do,
you lose everything or they make a change or you say some. You know, we
don't really work with creators who are pushing the envelope, but those
who do can get censored or blocked. The podcast is something that you do
own. It's an RSS feed. There's phones actually subscribed to your content.
They get delivered the content. And again, that's an open ecosystem, a
podcast. So we encourage creators definitely build up on the platforms,
pick 2 or 3, particularly X and YouTube where you really are making moves
for yours. It's more LinkedIn. If you're more of a business podcast, it just
depends what platform to that you're pushing the needle on.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

21. “But your way. We've seen people do it for sure. ou got to be talking to
someone at the end of the day, right? The podcast is the megaphone, but is
there anyone in. Is there anyone listening to it? Right. You got to really you
know, there's got to be people in the stands. Think of it as a mini stadium.
If 7000 people are listening to your podcast, if you're at a concert. That's a
lot of people, 7000 people. And, you know, we want to work with people
who are selling out a NASCAR stadium with 100,000 people per episode.
So, you know, we really want people who are very active on social media.
Their job is not just the podcast, but also to build an audience day to day.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

22. On converting podcast subscribers and listeners from social media clips
“The tools are still very elementary for just how to, in podcasting in
general, how to get awareness. I think Shorts and Reels really helped being
a TikTok copycat, so that's a really good discovery tool. Blue Wire has 13
million audience per month. We combine everyone's audiences to do that.
We think we're one of the few brands that are really focused on our
creators' brands. We're less focused on the Blue Wire brand, but we check
in quarterly with every podcaster to let them know ‘Here's what's working
in your content strategy. ‘Here's what other people are doing that's working
for them. Maybe you want to adopt this into your strategy.’
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

23. “I think clips have definitely changed the game for podcasting. That's made
discovery a lot easier. And now, yeah, it is about converting folks.
Ultimately you have to be interested in that topic though to [convert]. And
that's why the podcast CPMs are higher than a website CPM or a YouTube
CPM. What advertisers buy podcasting for are $25 or even bigger for the
celebrities per 1000. That's the hardest thing to get is someone's attention
for 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes here. So that's where we really believe in the
platform. You know, people are spending as much time with our
podcasters as they are maybe their favorite Netflix or their favorite
streaming platforms per week. You're watching 1 or 2, or some people are
watching a lot more shows per week.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

24. “But yeah, I think there's high value when you do convert someone and the
advertisers are paying for the higher value there, but we're more and more
including clips on our advertising packages too, that the advertisers are
understanding, hey, this is a full enchilada. This is a full ecosystem. I can
be reaching even more people on clips who aren't listening to the podcast
yet. SoI think we've done a good job utilizing that in sales. I think the
industry is catching up to how the podcast is — like I said, the podcasts are
on all the content they're putting out. So we're focusing more on a sales
perspective than actually helping build a centralized audience. We're
helping our creators and monetizing these clips is our focus.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

25. On how strategic creators are in trying to convert clip consumers to
subscribers
“I think you hear it on most YouTube [videos] with the subscribe button.
People animate that button. So that is a big part of it. But it's also how I
keep mentioning X as a platform for sports. You got to be more than just
promoting your own content, you got to be providing commentary for free
that they're getting. People generally want to hear from you more than just
the podcast, The stories on Instagram allow you to post there.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

26. “I think you got to be interesting at the end of the day and you got to be
using all the platforms. If you're just promoting your content it's not going
to work. Gary Vee, and he's one of many people who are experts on this,
but [h says] you give a lot away for free and then that'll get them to your
podcast [and] that's where you can charge advertisers a lot more money.
You're probably not making a lot on your X account, but it's getting people
excited there to then listen to your podcast.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

27. “That [parasoscial] relationship is what I really believe in is the biggest thing
about this industry. It goes beyond just consuming content. There is some
kind of connection that's developed when you're consuming someone for
hours. When you're putting someone into your brain like this with the
headphones; you know the trends are that people 35 and under are watching
more YouTube at night than cable television and streaming is up there, too.
We used to not be able to choose what we're going to watch at night, 15 years
ago, it was what it was. There was no streaming, it was just cable basically.
Now people they choose their own content, choose your own adventure.
They discover so many niche topics that they want to hear more about and
more in-depth, and then they connect with someone and they totally get it.
They're like, I get podcasting now. I get why people like it. I get why people
do it.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

28. “And more and more great creators are coming to the space. Legacy shows
are still popular, and that connection, parasocial friendship that you
develop, like you said, it's not coming through a TV screen for the most
part, or “I think you got to be interesting at the end of the day and you got
to be using all the platforms. If you're just promoting your content it's not
going to work. Gary Vee, and he's one of many people who are experts on
this, but [h says] you give a lot away for free and then that'll get them to
your podcast [and] that's where you can charge advertisers a lot more
money. You're probably not making a lot on your X account, but it's getting
people excited there to then listen to your podcast.” it takes a lot longer of a
time there.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

29. A bunch of people were surveyed, [ages] 35 and under, 86% like their
favorite podcasts more than their favorite musician or actor. That's one
poll, it's not everyone ever. But there's something happening here. This is a
true revolution. We don't even understand it, but I think ten, 15 years from
now, content is going to continue to look different. The president of the
United States one day may have a podcast like FDR got on the radio, it's
just a way to connect with people at such a better level.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

30. On the evolution and growth of podcasts and user behavior during the 5+
years Blue Wire has been around
“We've focused a lot on clips and YouTube. That's kind of been the biggest
change. So I won't harp there, but we didn't see it coming to the degree that
it is now. We've definitely changed our game plan to cater a lot more to
YouTube as the advertisers really believe in it. One thing we got wrong I can
talk about is we thought narrative content was going to be a lot more
popular in the sports genre. So we made a couple of narrative scripted shows
that sound more like you're watching a documentary or listening to a
documentary. Stories about Freddy Adu and from Grant Wahl — rest in
peace, great sports personality covering soccer. The audience really wasn't
there, it's not ready for it yet.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

31. “We've been doubling down on creator-led shows, athlete-led shows I did
not see in 2019 becoming as big as they are today. You had very few shows
at that time. CJ McCollum was like the first one, one of the only ones doing
it back then. So that's been a huge shift in the podcasting seas.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

32. “I think for the most part, we really believe that more dollars are coming
here. That has played out. Advertising spend continues to rise.ore and
more brands have podcast-specific agencies, they have their TV agency
who helps them with the TV spend, now they have a podcast agency that
helps them specifically with the podcasting spend. It's becoming more of
that marketing mix. If you think of it as a pie chart, I think there's a bigger
piece of pie allocated. Now, I didn't realize that a car brand spends $800
million a year on advertising. I didn't realize that hotel brands spend $475
million on advertising. That pie is now getting divided more into
podcasting and creators and digital faster than we thought in 2019.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

33. “So that was our original bet that we could build a business that helps
creators grow their revenue, but also is just catching their trend at the right
time, as that pie chart in the marketing mix is changing. So I think that's
the trend we've been right on. I want to grow Blue Wire faster. We have a
lot more things we want to accomplish, but I think we picked the right
medium. I really believe in the space and where it's heading. Of course, it
has its challenges, and we have been caught up in making mistakes. We
used to have 30 full-timers. We have less now, so we've made our fair share
of mistakes. Narrative content, it was great to have, but it didn't really help
us overall. So we live and you learn. But I really do believe in the industry
and it's heading in the right direction.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

34. How companies think about allocating podcast ad budgets vs. general digital media
“The hardest part about the game is it's different in every agency and every brand a
little bit. So it makes it a little challenging. Some straight up have a podcast budget,
some have the digital creators influencer budget, some it's still under radio and
audio for podcasting, because that's what they consider it. They don't factor in all
the video that's happening there yet, at least. So that makes it a little challenging for
us to sell, because we've got to understand, but it also gives us an advantage that
we've been doing it five years and figuring out this puzzle. It makes it harder for
someone to start selling ads right away. We understand the landscape, how thorny
it is with terminology and what different brands think. But I will say to your
question, more and more people are including YouTube, are thinking of it as digital
creators, even though it's spread out all over the place of how it's categorized
places.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

35. “Most advertisers agree [that] someone who's watching the YouTube full-
length episode is a different person than who's listening. No sane person is
really going to consume the same episode twice, unless they're maybe 1 or
2% of the people. So they're like, okay, let's add those two together, so
we've been able to tack on to our audience with YouTube. For most brands,
even if the terminology is different or how they buy is different they want
to include some radio on this, different folks. But I think YouTube has been
the big winner out of it all, like helping educate the advertisers, Hey, this is
a different audience. It's helping us make more money. It's helping the
podcasters make more money, just reaching more people. So them leaning
into podcasting has been huge.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

36. On the evolution of monetization and advertising vs. sponsorships in
podcasting
“I'll start with the Coors Light six pack of questions] example.
Sponsorships are the number one thing that we're after, and luckily we're
in sports because there's huge sponsorship budgets for a lot of really big
brands. You see the three-point contest, you see the Home Run Derby
sponsorships, like we're trying to turn podcasts into those kind of
properties where you're going to sponsor Cam Newton’s podcast for three,
six, nine months, maybe even the full year. and you're going to get signage
on the show. [If] it's a car brand, you're going to send him a car.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

37. “He's going to do an ad read out of the car, he's going to interview some
people inside the car. If it's a pizza brand…the doorbell rings [on the show]
we're going to interrupt, Hey, we're going to be back here, we're going to
bring the pizza live on the show. So, you know, we're trying to do organic
integrations with brands, make these sponsorships. That's our primo
number one sale that we're trying to work on all the time.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

38. “Second is just pure play impressions, people. A delivery service brand is
still trying to be cool. They're still trying to create brand awareness. They've
still got to compete with the big dogs. And, you know, they're willing to
spend and sponsor a show and just have reach and make it more simple.
There doesn't have to be all these custom elements. Like, we love that too.
It's simple. It's quick. There's a lot of studies that say podcast listeners and
YouTube listeners remember the brand a lot more when it's a podcast ad
versus a TV ad. There's just so many of them being thrown at you at one
time.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

39. “When you're listening to a more focused [podcast], we're pitching; yeah,
there's less of them. The podcasters are getting better and better over the
years. They're just being funny with these or creative, so trying to keep it
fresh. So those are the two. And then the third is just straight-up audio,
too, and also the clips and the social media. Live events, we've done some
parties with Miller Lite and some other brands, too; like, let's do a live
podcast, let's get some listeners together. That's another element. We go
for brand awareness, that's the brands we love working with. We also work
with performance agencies too, who are, Hey, if you perform well, we're
going to keep buying a shit-ton of this stuff, if you don't perform well, it's
over. But that's part of the mix.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

40. “There's programmatic too. So when you go to YouTube and you're
watching and you don't pay for the premium like I do, I skip all the
programmatic. But you know, every 10-15 minutes YouTube will throw an
ad in front of you. There's that for audio, too. We work with Megaphone
Spotify, so programmatic is kind of at the end of the waterfall if you think
about our revenue as a stream. But that's still a seven-figure business for us
per year, just remnant inventory that's left over. Spotify is best at on the ad
sales just kind of filling in the gaps for everyone, kind of how YouTube does,
just this automated player. We can just play those prerecorded commercials
on the Blue Wire [network]. It's a lower CPM for us, that's why we're not
focused on it, so we make less money on that. But it helps us fill out more of
our inventory, so we're not taking a zero on a commercial spot.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

41. How podcast listener communities engage with the creators and each other
on social media
“Number one is still X and Instagram. Those are the obvious answers. Two
looking at platforms like Discord. A lot of podcast channels now have
Slacks. Where are the hardcore listeners? What's best is they develop
friendships with each other. The hardcore listeners get into these rooms
and they're like starting new posts on what the podcasts are saying.
Sometimes the podcasters will chime in, but it's not all the host. The
community interacts with each other. We work with this fun new sports
startup called Watch Playback.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

42. “They have developed a technology, as long as you have a cable
authenticator login, you can watch regional games with your podcasters in
the room. So I'll use our Warriors guys again, and others are doing this too,
I think our Notre Dame podcast, Irish Breakdown and others, they go live
right after a game ends. They go on YouTube live. I mentioned earlier the
comments there they watch the game on playback, then they go YouTube
live, then they're answering questions in the Slack or the Discord channel
afterwards.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

43. “It's like night and day versus a radio host. You may call in and get on once
a year, or you're going to call in and wait on hold; like, you get to if you're a
listener, you can interact very seamlessly. Not everyone's there. And doing
this with some of the best people realize, I can't just have the social media
and the show, there's got to be another outlet. Live shows [are one]. Cam
Newton does a great job, he's done things in the past there. That's a good
way to build there. A little more expensive to pull off with, like a brand has
to be involved there. Those are a little more time-intensive, so we prefer
the digital platforms.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

44. “But some of our podcasters still have a Patreon that they started five years
ago and they make six figures a year from their Patreon. It's grown that
much. They've had that much loyalty over the years. They'll do bonus
content on the Patreon. There are other apps, too, Passes, some Patreon
competitors that people are working with. But creators and the tools that
they have, there's a lot at their disposal. It's best to go gradually, like hit
some milestones with your audience, and then you don't want to launch all
these from day one. But it's a way to just keep the engagement rolling.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

45. “There's people who truly this is their favorite show, you know, compared
to a Netflix show, compared to shows we used to watch in the past,
Friends, whatever. Like they are hard. They're thinking about this show all
the time for more than the games are being played for some of these folks.
So why I want to not sell Blue Wire for a long time is I think there's there's
a lot of value in this. This is almost like oil, right? You're drilling so deep
and getting the engagement. It's not top-level surface little quick stuff. It's
true. Like ride or die passion.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

46. On how Blue Wire thinks about its audience engagement and where to facilitate or
direct it
“You hit the word tracking really well. So we are building our first piece of technology.
We're never going to be a platform for audience, I don't think for a while; maybe in the
future, but right now what we're temporarily calling our home base where the
podcaster can come in and we are measuring those metrics for them. How engaged is
your Discord community? Here's your sales pipeline. Here's every brand we're talking
to. Here's how your YouTube's trending month over month. We're trying to make a
home base or a command center where the podcaster logs in. And it's like this
dashboard tool that we're in the final stages of completing here. And right now, you
kind of have Megaphone, you have some of these tools, but it's taking that so much
further. It's creating a baseball card for the podcaster that they can really understand.
That's where we want to play. That's what we think is missing in the podcast technology
space.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

47. “I can't go start a Discord competitor. I'm not looking to raise a ton of
money. And like, that's a whole other business, right? Maybe one day this
technology will have that chatting function, oeople will bring it more in-
house, nut our first layer of this tech is just going to be this command
center where the podcasters log in; you know, you log into LinkedIn, you've
got 3 or 4 notifications, different things going on. Try and gamify it so they
get that red icon. They're like, Oh, I have something going on here every
day, and try and get the podcastsers so engaged in their content that they
want to be doing more and giving them the insights that they need to do.
Hey, by the way, we have this insight. 38% of your guys's Discords are just
down on engagement. Maybe that's not a platform to use anymore. Maybe
there's another.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

48. “So we're trying to take all this data together, distill it, teach our podcasters
what to do, show them their business underneath the hood, and we think
that's going to help our valuation, that's going to help us just position the
company a lot better and it's going to keep podcasters with us long term
and attract new ones who are like, Wow, I really love this tool.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

49. On what Blue Wire looks for in good podcasters to join their network
“Not everyone has the gift of the gab. So I think we look for engaging
personalities. We still look for that digital engagement because that just
shows they're a social person, they kind of know how to push buttons.
Those two kind of go hand-in-hand. But I think we've all listened to a
boring podcaster before and know like, that ain't it. So for the most part at
Blue Wire, we don't really launch new shows from scratch. We like to see
that someone's already done it for a while, at least a few months, if not a
few years, and they've gotten to this place where they're ready to make
more revenue.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

50. “We've launched a few from scratch because we can tell they're
enthusiastic, we can tell they're a subject matter expert, we can see they
have some audience that's engaged. So we look for some things. But to kind
of de-risk ourselves, we're like, alright, who's already entrepreneurial?
Who's already out there making it? That way we're not launching a bunch
of shows from zero that don't take off. It's like a rocket that doesn't launch,
a firework that doesn't go off. It's like, Hey, they've they've proven that they
want to do this, they're already doing it.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

51. “A lot of people come to us making no money or very little money at all. We
know they're doing it because they love doing it, and the money's great to
have. But anyone who kind of just wants to — Hey, I'm only launching the
show if I get paid. Not to say we won't work with you, but we're less
inclined, we're less enthusiastic. We'd like to see someone who's like, I'm
building this because my audience wants this. I need to say this because
I'm really smart at this topic, or funny. There's all different kinds of that.
We mentioned earlier, the X's and O's, the interviewers, the funny people,
the straight-up fans, the athletes. Like, there's infinite amounts of genres
there where you can shoot the shit with your boys, or just be a solo host.
The good news is the listeners are flexible in the format you deliver it in as
long as you're you're good at it and they like the topic.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

52. “If you try and build a business like we did at Blue Wire, you're going to
swing and miss, too. But we've done a good job. Like a Chris Long several
years ago, we could tell he just loved doing this shit. Even though he made
$40-50 million playing in the NFL, he was bought into creating an
audience. You get the same vibe from the Paul brothers, from Cam
Newton, from JR Smith and his co-host Stephen Malbon, who have a great
golf podcast, Par 3. We're now working with On3, the college football
network. So we look at other content networks, too. But yeah, the
individual creator is the backbone of our business. That's where most of
our podcasters are. And a lot of them just love it, man. It's what they do,
it's who they are, it's a part of their personality. It's such a reward to be
able to have a platform like this.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

53. “I keep saying 15, 20 years ago, no one had platforms like this, unless you
were the beat reporter for this paper, if you were the one radio host in
town. So the walls got broken down. If this was your dream, you can go
make it happen. You can go become a radio or a TV host. Now you can
have your own show. So I think it's we're in the middle of a renaissance. It's
a really fun time to be a part of media and it's been fun to build the Blue
Wire brand, working with big names, working with mid-sized people and
just helping them make their dream a reality as well as mine.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

54. On the future of podcasts and time-sensitive content vs. more evergreen
content
“That's an area where I don't have a ton of experience, man. Most of the
sports content when you think about it is not evergreen. It's not relevant the
next week. The Yankees or Warriors are changing so quickly. We do have a
couple shows, Chris Van Vliet I keep mentioning Insight, his wrestling
interview podcast, so I think that's where clips become massive. And I know
you haven't done this for video, so that kind of puts you in a tougher
position, but you banked all these clips that are still valuable. The interview
I did about the Yankees last year has a few days to still be relevant, right?
Talking about the losing streak, Oh, now they're on a winning streak.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

55. “So I think you're not doing this to make a ton of money, you're doing this
to make connections, and it adds a lot more work for you. But you should
consider keeping these video podcasts and clipping some of the best
segments, and even just making a clips channel or just throwing it all out
there, right? But I get it. I was a podcaster, too. Like, it's hard enough just
doing the audio editing, all that; you're adding a whole nother work
stream. It's not that simple. I mean, you could throw a camera on here and
record it, but there's two editing streams, so it adds extra work. But some
of the clips go viral on Twitter are old, some of these podcast clips.
Obviously a lot of them are new, too, from new episodes…”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

56. “I think [evergreen content] is a way to separate yourself without question.
Some people have guests; like, I think you're good at getting morsels of
information out of people, right?...Tthere's a lot of different methods where
the clips can actually be packed. Yeah, some people start a new season of
stuff, or they maybe you're not releasing this next week because you're
doing a podcasting series and then you're doing a ticket sales executive
series, right? You're kind of batching some of these together to catch more
interest of like someone like, Hey, I'm doing a short five batch episode, and
it's evergreen so people can go back. So you can't kind of create that fear of
missing out because they can go back. But that's a good thing, too. I think
batching is a good idea.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

57. “Look at things outside of sports and see what people are doing even bigger
or smaller, medium. People are doing smart things of just different types of
gatekeeping and batching to keep people excited. A lot of podcasters, like
you're reaching out to people you don't know who's going to come on,
right? Having a bank of episodes, being a couple weeks ahead of time or we
really tell people, if you're going to do this, try and release one a week or
for a business one every other week, at least do 25 episodes a year, so you
know you have valuable content. You have to put in a little bit more time.
And for someone who's doing just audio and has an evergreen show, really
think about clips, really think about how you can batch things together.
That would be my quick advice.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

58. On time-sensitive podcasts offering a value prop to brands who know
consumption will happen within a specific time period
“I know we're wrapping up here, but we know Cheez-Its,just making up a random
example here this is not true, but using them as an example, they love college
football consumers and they love college football consumers in the South and
they love college football consumers who also drink craft beer and like these
brands are actually trying to target legit people. Not just males or not just 18-
year-olds, right? It's like, who likes these snack crackers and they also like craft
beer, and they probably have this type of insurance. These brands build audience
profiles. So yeah, Neil’s going to have a sales ticket segment coming up, you can
position this content to the advertisers. Hey this is more for you SAP or
Monday.com, you know they're trying to work with them, who are you looking
for?
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

59. “We can do some surveys to figure out what our audience actually likes on
these different shows? Again, podcasting is about drilling deep, TV is
surface-level content. You may have a second screen open. Podcasting, it's
hard to be listening to a show and working. You know, some people can do
it, but it's really hard. You're kind of just focused on that. We're drilling
deeper and we're trying to get them more data on who's actually listening.
That's the whole ecosystem…
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

60. “Not enough [in response to a question about how much they know about their
podcast consumers]. A lot of second-party data. We know where you're listening,
what county you're listening in. We know rough age range within ten years,
which is helpful. We do know household income range as well. We have cookies
podcasts are using how websites used to use those too, but they're all second-
party data, not first-party, so we're not pulling emails or whatnot. But now we're
doing extensive surveys asking, do you play video games? Do you like craft beer
or Bud Light? Do you drink liquor or wine? How often do you go to fast food
restaurants? Like all these different types of questions where we can represent a
nice audience profile. We hope to really start stepping up our game there in the
next couple of months, and that will be the future for Blue Wire. Right now we're
just selling young males; like that's an easy sell. But we want to be more
contextual, go deeper, and that's kind of one of our next big challenges here.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

61. The most memorable story or segment from Kevin’s time on radio
“You know, we did a charity basketball tournament promoting awareness for
autism. That was a really fun thing that we did, and we got the whole school
involved. We did like a March Madness tournament three-on-three. We had
some really fun guests and built some great connections out of that. It was
my first time ever being live on air, so I learned so much. I learned that
probably long term that there was going to be some challenges there. It was
so hard, but that was fun.
“I got into a fight with the ECU head football coach. They lost 76 to 14, we
had them on our program and we were asking him hard questions. He got
really mad at us, so I'll never forget that.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

62. Kevin’s favorite story that he worked on and/or the favorite player to work
with during his time with the Cleveland Browns
“I went to Paul Kruger's wedding, that was really cool. He was a defensive
end, Pro Bowler back in the day. He also played for the Ravens. Donte
Whitner I'm still friends with and in great touch with. My mentor there was
Nathan Zegura, who's still the radio broadcaster there and just such a good
dude. You know, I met Johnny Manziel there. I met a lot of really cool
people. Karlos Dansby, Brian Hartline, it was fun to be in the locker room
there, flying on the team plane. That was definitely one of my favorite
jobs.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

63. The most important lesson Kevin has learned as an entrepreneur
“You got another hour? Just kidding. I would say a couple quick hitters. It's all
about the people. Like, it can't be all about the money, you got to work with people
who you want to work with, but they also got to care about what you're doing. You
want to get everyone paid, but it's really hard. I didn't know there's going to be this
many no's and heartbreaks and, like, painful. There are so many highs and lows,
so you got to stay even-keeled. You can't celebrate wins too hard, you can't take the
losses too badly because there's a low coming any week. You're going to lose a lot
of sleep if you care, and I still do a little bit, but I've gotten a lot better there.
“Those are some of the biggest lessons. Care about the people, be ready for the
wins and losses and try and stay even-keeled. That's right off the top of my head,
but I could write a whole book on this.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

64. “I love his football takes, but it's cool to see him be all about hip-hop
culture in Atlanta, and he's a really interesting person. He, to my
knowledge, is the only former multi-time Pro Bowl quarterback podcasting
right now. Podcasting for former football players has been more O-linemen
like Jason Kelce or punters like Pat McAfee, so it's cool to see a superstar
quarterback throw himself out there like this, and he's crushing it. And it's
cool to have him as one of the faces of the franchise right now.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

65. Kevin’s favorite non-sports podcast and/or favorite non-Blue Wire podcast
that he’s consumed or come across any time
“I listened to two semi-regularly, so My First Million by Sam Parr and
Shaan Purri. That's a really good one where I've gotten ideas or heard
entrepreneurs go through things or have been inspired. I like how they talk
about business. Guy Raz, How I Built This. I mentioned him at the very
beginning of this podcast. He's one of the OGs, but he interviews
entrepreneurs. So I've listened to so many good episodes there. I could
name 15 different Blue Wire ones, but I'll just stick to the business ones
that I gravitate towards, which has been those two.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

66. The most memorable podcast segment or episode from a Blue Wire show
“I'll shout out Chris Van Vliet, he's our wrestling podcaster. He's getting
these amazing interviews with Undertaker, Cody Rhodes, the current
people and retired people and just the community he's built has been
insane. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but people have broken
news on their shows. People have really gone viral with some of their clips,
but there's not one right now that's standing out to me. So I just want to
shout out Chris because he continues to step up his game.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

67. The sport whose fans are the most avid podcast listeners
“Football is our biggest category, basketball is two, college is three. So
those are the big ones.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

68. The best meal Kevin got back when he lived in
California [he recently moved to Texas]
“There's a hole in the wall Mexican place when
I lived in the Burbank North Hollywood area.
I can't even pronounce it right, El
Michoacano. It's a Mexican burrito stand
attached to a car wash. You drive by it, you'd
be like there's no way this is good. It is, like,
literally the best Mexican food. Breakfast
burritos, burrito bowls, whatever you want.
That was walking distance from my house. LA
is not very walkable, so that was one place
that I got to go and walk to that I loved.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

69. “Cobi is a really good Indian place in
Santa Monica that I'll shout out. Cobi,
had a lot of good meals there. It's like
Indian, Polynesian type of food.
Really really good. LA, I miss a lot
about the food, but a lot of good
barbecue here in Houston that I like.
There's not a huge barbecue scene in
LA, so definitely been having a lot of
brisket here in Houston.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

70. Kevin’s favorite podcast name among the Blue Wire podcasts
“I'll choose Gyro Step, which is a Milwaukee Bucks podcast. Euro is kind of
a play on Greece where Giannis is from, so Eurostep hosted by Ty
Windisch who's also a full-time employee with us. But Milwaukee Bucks
podcast, I’ve always loved the name of that show.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

71. The current athlete without a podcast that Kevin most want to see start one
in the future with Blue Wire
“George Kittle's really funny. Justin Tucker seems like he's really funny
with the Baltimore Ravens. I think, like, not a lot of quarterbacks are going
to become podcasters, but these people who are like McAfee and Jason
Kelce, they're playing other positions in the league, they're already really
good at social media now. I mean anyone who already starts the channel.
That's why we love Cam Newton, the Paul brothers, they already started
before we got there. So someone who started and needs help, that's who I
love most. That shows that they're entrepreneurial. That's who we like.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

72. Where to find Kevin and Blue Wire on digital/social media
Find Kevin on Twitter @Kevin_Jones and find him on LinkedIn
Check out Blue Wire’s website at https://www.bluewirepods.com
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 276: Kevin Jones

73. @njh287; www.dsmsports.net
Thanks again to Kevin 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 276: Kevin Jones