The ZoomWithOurFeet Photography Podcast

Your Career Path Isn't Linear: Lessons from Ryan Sampson's TV Journey

• Timothy "TMac" McCarty • Season 2 • Episode 31

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Ryan Sampson shares his journey from multimedia production student to Executive Producer at the New York Post, revealing how he navigated the challenging world of sports media production while building a sustainable career.

• Started at Ashland University with no clear career path before discovering passion for media production
• Pursued graduate studies at Elon University, producing a documentary in Guatemala as his master's project
• Secured coveted position at ESPN through networking and persistence
• Worked grueling hours (5pm-3am) at ESPN cutting highlights, operating prompter, and logging footage
• Created his own role as a breakdown producer for NFL talent including Randy Moss and Matt Hasselbeck
• Left ESPN after seven years due to limited advancement opportunities and work-life balance concerns
• Joined New York Post as it transformed from traditional newspaper to digital media company
• Now leads teams developing original video content, podcasts, and digital strategy
• Emphasizes editing skills as non-negotiable for anyone entering media production today
• Values initiative, pitching ideas, and willingness to learn in potential hires

Wisdom: "If you can't edit in this current modern day world that we live in, because everyone needs to be an editor, you have no chance of working in this business." ~Ryan Sampson, Executive Producer of Media | NYPost.com


Speaker 1:

If you can't edit, in my opinion, tim, if you can't edit in this current modern day world that we live in, because everyone needs to be an editor, you have no chance of working here in this business, this business.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Zoom With Our Feet podcast, the pod about learning multimedia production With me, your host T-Mac, a professional photographer, videographer and teacher. If you are going to map out a career journey for those seeking their place in media production, my next guess is the standard. Figure out what you want and then do all of the hard work to make it happen. The executive producer of media at the New York Post, ryan Sampson, joins me to share his travels from New York to Guatemala, to ESPN and his current gig at the New York Post. Our guest speaker is in the photo lab. Let's talk to a pro, ryan Sampson. Welcome to the Zoom With Our Feet podcast. How are you?

Speaker 1:

bud. I'm well, mr McCarthy, how are you?

Speaker 2:

All right, here are the rules. Don't call me Mr. Those days are long gone. My friend Mr Mack is fine.

Speaker 1:

Mr.

Speaker 2:

Mack.

Speaker 1:

Hey Mack, how are you?

Speaker 2:

sir, you keep doing that. I'm going to tattle to John Scrata on you and he will go. He called you, what Right?

Speaker 1:

That's right. That's right. I mean, it's been a pleasure. I know we've been planning this for a little bit and I'm excited to do this with you and just go through the journey of what we're doing here and what we're working on. Just go through the journey of what we're doing here and what we're working on Me starting in your classroom and learning about not just sports coverage, but just all about digital production and working in this field. It's taken me to a spot I never thought I'd be in, to be honest with you, but I couldn't be happier where I am right now and I'm happy to talk about it with you.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm going to start with a funny story, sort of set the tone. Imagine, if you will, we were in John's TV truck, we were covering a game and everybody was doing their thing and all of a sudden the truck goes boom, and there's a loud thump and you, not even a second. You start yelling at this lady who was driving a golf cart that ran into the TV truck. And it's so funny. You went New York on her in less than two seconds, to the point where John and I looked at each other and we're like I think we're going to have to rescue that lady, Because you were like what are you doing? Hey, what are you doing? And John goes hey, New York, calm down, it's okay.

Speaker 1:

She ran into a truck. We're at a football field at a high school, shooting a football game, and I just remember the loud bang and we're feeling in the truck and I'm like what the hell could have hit us. And we're behind the stands, right, it's where people are walking and this woman in a golf cart just rams right into the truck and I'm like it's a big white truck. How, how do you, how do you hit this? Like it's not, it's not moving. Mind you, we're parked, we're set up, we're going and we're doing our thing, but you run right into the thing, the object that's just sitting there, like it just didn't make sense and I'm like what the hell are you doing, lady? Like where where are you going? Like would you did you think you could make it? And like I, I, I don't know man, like there's some wacky people I find when you're in these situations and uh, yeah, I had to let loose a little bit, cause I'm like you did. What the hell are you doing.

Speaker 2:

It was like therapy for you.

Speaker 1:

It was good yeah, well, you know the stress of the truck, you know how it goes and you're in the.

Speaker 1:

You're in the heat of it sometimes and it's like what the hell's going on out here, like that's the last thing you need. I need to focus on do we get the replay? Did we get the right graphic? Is the camera actually following the long oblong object? As john scrata used to say during the game follow the Brown oblong thing, that that thing, follow it. Um, you know your focus is on that as a first timer in the truck and yeah, it's just like. You know, life throws curve balls at you literally. Sorry for the pun, but woman literally ramming into our TV truck is not something I ever thought would happen in my early digital media production career. It was funny.

Speaker 2:

It was so funny. So you've had actually you've had a very long and winding journey in media production. I mean, you're a New York kid and so when did you become a sports fan and when did it sort of click that, hey, I could do this.

Speaker 1:

I mean I started as a sports fan when I was young. Everything went through my dad and I think it goes through a lot of people. When you start out as a sports fan, you kind of learn about sports from your father and you learn about the dedication, the fandom, the craziness. And you learn about the dedication, the fandom, the craziness. And I just remember growing up in the falls here on Long Island about the Jets. Unfortunately, Somehow I got suckered into that, Even though my father was more of a Giants fan.

Speaker 2:

Browns fan stop.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly. But you know, you grow up and you fall in love with football. And then from there you fall in love with baseball in the spring and soccer during the summer, and you start playing sports and, uh, that just became an everyday thing for me. Um, did I ever think it would become a career? No, like I won't lie to you, when I was in high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. When I, when I was coming to college, I was like I just want to get away from New York. Right, get away from that lifestyle. I was like I just want to get away from New York, right, get away from that lifestyle. See what a different part of the country is, because I never had lived in another part of that country. I grew up on Long Island.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So that begs the obvious question how did a boy from Gotham end up at Ashland University in Ohio? And it was you wanting to leave.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I wanted to leave, I wanted to get away, because you can get very. There's this element of and I would say, in long Island, new York city. There's this element of once you're in it and born and raised in it, you never want to leave it. Um, and for me, I was like I don't want to be, I don't want to get sucked up into that narrative of I'm always a New Yorker, like I've never left and never been anywhere else. I've always had that mindset like let's go find somewhere else to live, let's go explore a different part of the country.

Speaker 1:

So when I applied to Ashland in Ohio, it was through a family friend and he's like I think you could play football over there. And I'm like I'm not tall enough or big enough to play football in Division II, but I would love to go over there, see what that lifestyle is like. And I got a good scholarship and I'm like I'm going to go for it. See what it's like, see what that lifestyle is like. So I didn't have a major when I declared at Ashland I didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought honestly, tim, I thought I was going to be an NYPD detective when I grew up out of college. I'm like that's what happens to a lot of New Yorkers they turn into cops, firefighters. I've had so many people I graduated with who turned into cops and firefighters and I'm like am I going to fall down that rabbit hole?

Speaker 1:

But then it changed in freshman year when I started noticing what you guys were doing, what the TV station was doing, and I'm like you know what People have always told me? You're a good speaker. When it comes, you're passionate about sports, you love sports. Why don't you go get involved in the TV station See what they're about? You guys started doing broadcast productions on the, on the football games and the basketball games, for both the men's and women's, and the women's team was really fricking good and the and the and the football team turned out to be pretty decent by the time I graduated. So I was like, let me give this a shot, let me go see what that's about. And that changed my entire perspective getting into those classes and getting into that field for digital media production, which wasn't well established. I feel like until we started, my crew and maybe the class before me really started getting involved and being seriously invested in this part of the school and and this new, uh major.

Speaker 1:

So I started really liking those classes that you and and, uh, you know Dave and and and Gretchen had started teaching there, and once I started getting those and Matt, and once I was in those classes yeah, rip, I mean once I was in those classes, though that's when I started to really fall in love with saying this is something I could be interested in.

Speaker 2:

How do you think we JDM folks prepared you for both graduate school, which I got to be honest, you were pretty set on getting a job when we last spoke, which was literally your last semester, because I think you were on my advice list and how do you think we prepared you for grad school and then the industry at large?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I think you guys kept it honest for us, which was something that I don't think a lot of, and I've learned this through giving lectures at some of my former not professors, but people I've worked with at ESPN. I've given some lectures at some of their classes. At Marist, I've given the same thing at Elon in my grad school. In my grad school, I think some of those professors didn't keep it as honest as they should when it comes to this field and how hard it can be and how really you need to learn skills and you need to advance those skills once you get them, and it takes a mindset, I think in this field too, to be able to. Can I curse on this podcast, by the way? Am I allowed to, or you?

Speaker 2:

keep it clean. Yes, you may.

Speaker 1:

Ryan, you have to dig through the shit sometimes. That's the truth. You have to be able to eat shit sometimes when it comes to this business. In your classes I remember I think it was Sports Media 101 or something like that and we had made I think it was something like that, but we specifically talked about sports media coverage, tv rights, how that field works, and I was so fascinated with that part of the of the business and you had brought some camera people that worked on Indians games at the time. You'd brought some people who worked on the Cleveland Cavalier games and they would talk about their life and experience working in a truck, working at a camera, what that was like working for Fox sports Sports Ohio.

Speaker 1:

I think at the time that was eye-opening. I'm like, okay, I'm getting firsthand accounts of what those people went through and these are professional adults who've been in the business for years. I learned I need to get good at a lot of the skills, but I also need to figure out what my niche is, because there's so many different avenues in journalism and also digital media production and JDM. What you and Gretchen and Matt and John and everyone had done for me was I can find a path in production and that's where I wanted to go. I didn't want to go to journalism, I didn't want to go to newspaper. I didn't want to go to newspaper, I didn't want to go as a photographer, I wanted to stick in video and I wanted to stick in digital media production itself. That, for me, gave me a path to say, okay, I want to find a career, like you said in my last semester in that. But I want to be aggressive about it because I know you have to get in early. It's all about the internships. I know you have to get in early. It's all about the internships. It's about your resume, what you've worked on, what you've shot, what you've edited, all that. So I tried to harness my skills. But I said to myself I don't think my resume is as complete as I need it to be after college, even though I've worked on actual live productions in college, which a lot of people haven't at the time. I've worked on editing, shooting, producing all my own stuff.

Speaker 1:

But I just felt like, for me, I don't know if I'm good enough to go work in an actual TV station and go work in the digital media field, which was, I would say, another advanced step of learning how social media works, learning how Google SEO works, learning how to code and develop websites and how interactive design that goes into that. So I said and it's an advanced one-year program, it's an accelerated program, so it's one year go get your master's degree in digital media and see where it takes you from there. And from that point I had already had connections at ESPN through Elizabeth Buhite, who I cannot thank enough for what she did for my career and I know you've helped her tremendously. And she got my foot in the door at ESPN after Elon.

Speaker 1:

But the reason why I went to Elon is because I just wanted to get better. Like Tim, I just wanted to get more skills and I want to get more knowledge. We can get into what happened to Elon, but like that, for me, after Ashlyn, the four years of working in live productions on football and basketball games, working in the TV station, being a TD slash director, slash producer at the same time, doing all three hats at once, that for me said okay, my eyes are open, I know I need to get my skills, I know I need to harness my skills and be better at them. And the only way I'm going to get better at them, I think, is through actually going to a master's program and learning more and just gaining more knowledge and harnessing that. I think that can put me in a better spot. That's why I did that.

Speaker 2:

I believe that your group was the group. What years were you there?

Speaker 1:

I was there from 2010 to 2014.

Speaker 2:

So in 2011, I did a fellowship with the Emmy Association in LA. They had a fellowship program for media production teachers and I thought it was cool, got to go to LA and I met a guy from Elon and I brought him back to Ashland I believe that was your class that saw him and he talked about all the things that were coming and all the different ideas. So to me that timeline fits, because I think that that helped a lot of people sort of reorient where they thought the business was going and it wasn't going to be legacy media, it was going to be other things, I mean. And ultimately, you're working at a newspaper. Yes, it's a media company. Yes, there's a larger media company right, the bigger, bigger fish. But you learned that from someone coming in and articulating that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know what, tim, you make a great point. Like I didn't like if you told me back in 2011, 2012, oh you're gonna work for a newspaper in new york city, like, no way, no chance. Like I, I wanted to be in video, right, like I just wanted to do video, um, but I knew and I think you know this at a young and during those years, for me, I was very progressive in the fact that I thought I focused on the sports right deals, part of this. I thought about the digital distribution of this. Like, like how this works for TV, how this works for online. Like that was my mindset. I was I.

Speaker 1:

For me, I was like I don't want to work, you know, I don't want to be a camera guy my whole life and that's no offense to anyone that wanted to do that Like that just wasn't me. Like I wanted to be in quote, unquote the content game. Like that's where I wanted to go, because that's where, that's where all the big fish live and that's where I wanted to be and that. And the only way I thought for me to get into that spot was learn more about this entire thing, advance your skills and and find your path. So, um, yes, I would say, that's where I realized like I didn't want to work in legacy media.

Speaker 1:

I'd rather work, and in the more advanced, because you, you know this, we, we live in 2010 to 2014. That's where social media really took off. Twitter became a real thing, instagram advanced into an actual platform. All that, all that media came about and that's where you saw some of the possibilities of where this could all be going. I mean, we're doing a podcast over StreamYard. You never thought that that would be available to us in 2010, 2011, 2012. But then you started seeing the possibilities because media changed through social media and you're like, no, the game's changing.

Speaker 2:

One of my fondest memories of Ashland is how, before our time, we were and we had all the components. We took the radio, we took the TV, we took the newspaper, we took we stole some of the sports comm majors and then we brought John in who was the final piece of the application step. So now you know me talking about sports and I remember I had camera placement sheets and I had all of my camera meeting stuff that I brought in and shared with you guys and having all the mafia come in and talk to you guys. But that is only a half or two thirds of it. Then I got to get your butts out of seats and get you in that little white truck and now it's a different ballgame. Now when I talked about you having someone talk that you are, it is the ultimate multitasking. Got somebody talking in your ear, you're looking at a viewfinder, there's a game going on and you're being required, asked to think ahead of someone who's cutting all of the sequence of those cameras but also the other jobs.

Speaker 2:

I can remember Megan Wise, who was not a production major. She was a sports comm major and has since gone off to do social media and is killing it in management and all that other stuff. But the funny part of it was there. She sat in that, in that truck doing graphics, loving every minute. She was completely out of her element and you could see the fear in her eyes. But after she did one game she was like I'd like to do more of this and we're like another satisfied customer no, you're, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1:

I think you, uh, being actually in the live production element changes your perspective about all of it and what the possibilities are. And I think not only for Megan, for Elizabeth, for myself. We all were able to sit in that truck, do almost every position in that truck and see the different aspects of what was going on and, like I said, you find your niche, you find where your path is and you're like this is something I really want to work on, or this is where I want to go forward in my career, and that's a very invaluable part of the education that we got at Ashland.

Speaker 2:

The education process must include I'd lose my career tech teacher card an application step, and I don't care what anybody says. You can write papers until you're blue in the face, but until you're standing behind that camera, somebody's talking in your ear and you're having to think, oh, I have a set of shots I'm supposed to do, ooh, but there's one over there and everybody's going crazy, touchdown just happened. I go shoot the coach and we all go, yes, and we don't hesitate to put that shot on the air. And I'm sure I know, as a camera operator myself, the feeling, the dopamine hit that you get like, ooh, I just did something, I just did something right, I just did something right.

Speaker 2:

So what's interesting to me about you going to grad school and your major was multimedia production, not some specific production major like TV editing, writing. You chose multimedia production. I feel like you already had that idea, as you said, but you took a little detour. You did I don't know whether it was an internship or a job you did some work for a nonprofit. I didn't have that on my bingo card, by the way.

Speaker 1:

Listen, I didn't have that on my bingo card either, to be honest with you, when I joined the program, but we were given the opportunity as our master's project to go work with nonprofit organizations help put together and piece together a website that's interactive in design, interactive in use, and also create content for that site for visitors that come to that site.

Speaker 1:

Um, so my group that I was placed in went to Guatemala. Uh, a very, very third world part of the country. Um, we traveled for an entire week. I stayed with a family in this, in this Lake based community. Uh, we flew into Guatemala, we drove and these windy roads and I was stuck in the back of a van with all of my camera equipment. Uh, and I, you know, was stuck in the back of a van with all of my camera equipment, and each person in our group was designated as a different part of what they would do. One person would do UX design, ux coding. One person would do photography. One person does videography. One person will do as the manager of the entire group.

Speaker 1:

So for me, I obviously stuck to the video aspect, because I had so much video background and that's something I showed an interest in during my master's time there. So not only are you the video person, you're the producer, because you're leading all your shots, you're having other people help shoot you things, you're also the director when shoots are going on and you're also, like you're the entire executive producer for the entire shoot and I ended up being the editor too, so you're a one man band, but you're doing it right. So I'm like, okay, this is going to be my first time experience of having multiple cameras, carrying all this equipment, making sure everything's well lit, making sure everything's well shot, grabbing moments when I can, when they're happening, also interviewing the locals there in Guatemala. So I stay with a family there in Guatemala for an entire week. My most fond memory of that entire week was probably the last two days that I was there is we got up at the crack ass of dawn. I'm talking 4am. We wake up, um, no hot showers, mind you. You're washing yourself with a cold water bucket. It's very it, it's, it's, oh man, I mean it like you learn more again. You want to talk about, like getting out of your comfort zone and going to learn a different culture and different part of the world. I cannot recommend that enough.

Speaker 1:

I did that right so because, like other groups, went to the bahamas and aruba like no, no, we went to guatemala, in the third world country, in the jungles. We were in a lake based community, you know, an hour and a half from the airport. But you know, I got to climb up a mountain where all the coffee because the entire community was based off the coffee plant factory was is. They worked with people that were homeless, but then they also worked with the coffee plant organization because that was their source of income for the entire community. So we got to go up with the coffee bean farmers who get up every morning with empty sack and they fill this sack with 50 pounds of handpicked coffee beans and they bring it down the mountain to go to the coffee plant factory and you learn about the entire process of how coffee is made.

Speaker 1:

Now this is when I started really falling in love with coffee and that was the best coffee I ever had in my life. Because I got to take a sunset, sunrise eclipse with my camera of the sun rising over the lake and over the mountains and there's a volcano in the distance and the volcano was spewing smoke with the sun rising. It was the coolest thing I've ever volcano in the distance and the volcano was spewing like smoke with the sun rising. It was the coolest thing I've ever shot in my life. But I got to interview a lot of the coffee bean plant like factory people. I got to interview the farmers that went up into the jungle to pick the beans. Come down, how they, how they brewed it. How they, how they. What's the terminology? Kind of like toasted roasted. They it how they.

Speaker 2:

What's the?

Speaker 1:

terminology, kind of like- Roasted Roasted they couldn't think of the word. The master roaster there and this guy you could tell he's just salt of the earth, done this for his whole life, born and raised into this business, and he was so nice and he could tell you which one was a good bean, which one was a bad bean. He'd handpick them himself, he'd roast them here. Handpicked them himself, he'd roast them. Here's the dark roast, here's the medium roast, here's the light roast. How he goes about that. And then he handed us espresso, handmade from himself there with his machine. Best thing, best thing, best coffee I ever drank in my life. Um, and that for me it was a very liberating experience.

Speaker 1:

So, getting to interview all those people, getting to experience all that, uh, the culture, the food, the lifestyle, incredible. But now you got to piece this whole thing together right Now. I got to piece all this together. I have so much footage, I have so many photos, I have so many videos. I have to organize this. I have to figure out what's this documentary going to be like, what's this trailer going to be like, what are the videos going to be formatted for site. So you go about your editing process and organizing everything. So it's not just a mindset of I'm an editor, I need to be a producer, I need to be a content producer right now and figure out what's going to work for the site. So I edited a couple of trailers together, multiple cuts, using After Effects.

Speaker 1:

I had a designer on our team. She helped me create this incredible opening animation with this coffee tree and she just hand designed it and then it has the logo for the not-for-profit animate into the tree through the leaves and I put it through After Effects. I got that set squared away and then we put that onto all the videos. She designed the logo for all of me, the graphics that I needed for it. So you're working as a team and then you're seeing the process. You're seeing what goes into making an actual high quality video, the end product I could not have been happier with. A lot of people said you did a really good job of capturing really what Guatemala was about. Um, that was a proud moment for me getting to do that and, uh, just help me learn more about this business and that it's not just linear tv, right, tim, it's about everything else that goes into it. So when it goes to digital media production. It's not just about sports games. There's so many different avenues.

Speaker 2:

You can go here the zoom Zoom Pod will be right back.

Speaker 3:

Time for a Geek Gear break. Need something for your kit? Check out our Adorama and SmallRig affiliate links in the show notes and in the YouTube description. From cameras to cages, lighting to audio, adorama and SmallRig have everything you need to trick out your kit. The best part is they're both running summer sales right now. Remember, if you use one of our links to purchase, we may make a small commission that doesn't affect the price of your item. Use our links today to help us bring you more great ZoomPod guests. Zoompod fans. If there's one thing media production peeps love, it's a good t-shirt On remotes in the studio or just hanging out with the crew. We love wearing our many moods for all to see. Wear your mood from the new Camera Nerd Collection at the zoomwithourfeetcom slash store today.

Speaker 2:

And now back to the show. I think what's interesting is, in your case, everything led to the next thing. You essentially all that you've described is taking that truck experience and though there weren't wires all leading to a central place, you still knew what the hole required. And you are exactly right. You are functioning as a producer, and I think that having that as the sort of the capstone of the education probably led to my next question, which is applying for the coveted internship at ESPN. I got to believe there's thousands because of its reputation. Two-thirds of them aren't serious, but even the ones that are are coming with serious chops. So the next step talk me through that internship, and then your sort of little stepping stones within that content, and then AP.

Speaker 1:

Tell me about that experience. I ESPN. I didn't think was in my purview until, like, going through that grad project, I was like you know what I really love this part, but I also really want to work in sports still. And I still have that, that passion to work in sports. And there's no better company when it comes to sports, when it comes to sports production, it's ESPN. Like that's where you go, that's where you're going to make your your, your name for yourself, that's where you're going to actually put something on your resume. That's worth it.

Speaker 1:

And you know me, I was like I don't want an internship, I want a PA job. So I actually applied for the temporary PA job and it's a program that they started there two years prior, before I had applied, and Elizabeth got into it. So I connected with Elizabeth. But also at Elon, they had a good relationship Connection, elon. They had a good relationship connection through ESPN and one of the hiring managers I got on the phone with and Elizabeth's like I'll tell him that you're applying because she was friendly with him.

Speaker 1:

And this is part of the thing that I think we haven't hit on yet, tim. It's about the connections. It's about the connections and that's something you're not going to find out until you go and do things, meaning go, you are and, like you said, I applied with probably 2000 people for a total of 20 positions and my name wouldn't have been put at one of the top of the resumes a pile because if I didn't know Elizabeth from college, who I became friendly with working in the JDM department, and if I didn't go to Elon, where they had a connection already with ESPN, I wouldn't have gotten the job for ESPN. My resume might speak for itself, but I have to still be able to say who are you. So that was my connection right. So I used that to my benefit and I hate that, but at the same time it's part of the game, unfortunately, and you have to play it. It sucks, it's that way, but it is.

Speaker 2:

So it's that way, but it is, so it's it's. Let me stop you and say it's in every business. You don't think cops don't have situations like that, or the firefighters that you've mentioned, or lawyers, or or whatever. Networking is king and it's hard to tell 19, 20, 21-year-olds how important everything is building a network.

Speaker 1:

No, you're 100% right. No, yeah, I mean. So I got my foot in the door by interviewing. They were impressed with my resume. They were impressed with my work that I've done with JDM department, being in live sports productions. That's huge. So I ace my interviews.

Speaker 1:

They ask for the final in-person interview. You go through some final testing. I did really well on that. They test you a lot in your sports knowledge, how this works, what's the top storylines. They make you think like a producer before you even get the job. So I get the temporary six-month PA. Um, so I get the, the pa temporary six-month pa uh contract. If you do well, after six months you get hired full-time, yippee. So now I have six months.

Speaker 1:

I move myself from ohio to north carolina, elon for master's degree, back up to the northeast. I'm in connecticut now on a temporary six-month contract with espn. Now you can try and prepare yourself and say I've worked in a million sports trucks, I've worked in so many sports productions, I've gone on documentaries, I've done this on that bull shit. When you get to ESPN you don't know anything because they are going to put you through the ringer man and you learn so much and so quickly it makes your head literally spin with how much information they throw at you when it comes to live production, because they're immediately going to throw you on SportsCenter and SportsCenter is their flagship programming for them. They're never going to let that show die, even though it is a dying show. I will talk more about that, if you want, later. But it is a dying show, but they want you on it In 2015,.

Speaker 1:

After I graduated from Elon, I'm in it. I'm on ESPN, I'm working in SportsCenter as a PA. I'm cutting highlights. Highlights is where everyone starts. You go and watch one game that you're working on it could be possibly two games, if you get really good at cutting highlights. You're setting ins, you're setting outs, you're sending it over to your editor, that's it. And then you're creating shot sheets. Shot sheets are descriptions for the anchors to describe what is going on in that game highlight. So if you have intro graphics, if you have a fun nugget, if you have the actual ISOs of certain players, you need that. You need pronunciations for the players. You need to make sure you have all of that described in your shot sheets and they have highlight producers who sit above you and sit on your ass and make sure that you're writing everything right, spelled correctly, making sure it's the right player, making sure it's the right play. All of that is watched down after the editor, who, mind you, they have a temporary PA who's a newbie and they're going to be like. I've been doing this job for 10 to 15 years as an editor here, working on SportsCenter, and I got this newbie coming in. They ain't going to help you, they're going to leave you on the island and they're going to shut their mouth because they know you're trying to get a full-time job here. So that's where you sink or swim, tim, and you really do. But if you find a good highlight producer which I did who will baby you a little bit and let you make mistakes, fix them and then don't make those mistakes again. You continue to grow and from that point on you worked on SportsCenter and I won't.

Speaker 1:

For people that are watching this, it's not an easy gig. You're working 5 pm to 2 am every night, if not longer, till 3 am, because you're not done until all the audio is logged, making sure all of the post-game sound is logged, making sure all of the shots are logged. You're literally logging, and by logging I mean you're actually typing on a computer base hit by Giancarlo Stanton to right field at this time. Code Punch because they archive all of this and all of this is archived in their system and it's a master archive. So when people go back and saying I need john carlos stanton's rbi single against the red socks from june 12 2010, they can punch that up. So, like you're doing all, these things.

Speaker 2:

It's even more specific than that. I need the look that he made on the called third strike in. You know, I need that ISO shot, because that ISO shot is going to help Cause. Guess what it's going to help.

Speaker 1:

It's going to help a breakdown, it's going to help a a, a future tease that they make. It's going to help a future montage documentary, whatever you want it is. They're going to use that footage somewhere down the line and they need that logged because people need to find it and search it, because there's their own search engine, espn all. And this is not just baseball, it's every sport, it's college, it's high school, it's everything. Don't forget the melt that comes at the end of the game. So we all know what melts are in the TV game.

Speaker 1:

Melts are a compilation footage. Yes, so at the end of every television broadcast for any sporting event, good ones and good melts, which hopefully your trucks are putting together, good melts is the raw camera footage that is sent in from each camera angle, from each play during the game, and you need to log all that because that's the good stuff, that's the clean stuff. By clean I mean there's no score bug on the bottom there, there's no bug on the upper right, everything is clean. And it's sent back to site over satellite and they're feeding that from the truck and you need to log that because we're going to use that footage again for future use. We need that footage. So you're doing all this as a PA, you're learning about this. You're working as a prompter on SportsCenter. I'm rolling the scroll. That's what I did a lot starting too. I did a ton of prompter shifts. You start off prompting the 5 pm SportsCenter, the 7 pm SportsCenter, the 11 pm.

Speaker 1:

SportsCenter the LA SportsCenter. You might have to prompter for that too. You're working, and you're working, and you're working and it's like, oh my God, this is what I'm in. But this is what you're doing, man. You're working on live production. You're getting experience. You're getting invaluable experience. You're making connections with other PAs that you started with. You're making connections with highlight producers, aps, producers who work on SportsCenter. Okay, got it. Finally I get hired full-time because I've done a damn good enough job at what I was doing prompting highlight, producing. Whatever it was I was asked to do, I did it and I tried to do it to my best of my ability. So now I get hired full time. Great, where do I go from here? You're staying on SportsCenter, really, yeah, okay. But then they said you know what? In a couple months time we're going to start rotating all of you. And we started getting rotated. And where did I go from there?

Speaker 1:

I went to college football and college basketball. We called it RAPS. So when RAPS the unit you worked in there you worked on live college football and college basketball games on all the ESPN networks ESPN, espn2, espnu, espn News, all of it. You're working on them. So Saturdays and Sundays were major production days for us, fridays as well, for the Friday night games. And what you did in the wraps unit is you worked on VOs, voiceovers, you worked on SOTs, you worked on highlights, you worked on B-roll packages, you worked on teases, bumps, all of it. And then you also worked on graphics. So that was nice to work on graphics. For the first time, you're getting experience with lower thirds, full screens. How do those work? How does name fonts work? I need a score bug that's live updated. I need to make sure that the right team, the right network, the right score, the right player stat on the bottom all of that goes right. There's a lot when it goes to graphics and I was like I don't want to be any part of graphics because that is way too much information and too monotonous. I'd rather stick to the visual video. So I sticked a lot with highlights and then a fun part.

Speaker 1:

I got to find my niche here, tim right, because that's all what this is about ESPN. There's so many frigging roles to put on one TV show or one live production to ESPN. It takes hundreds, if not 200 or 300 people to put that on and people don't want to believe that that's the truth. Now, while ESPN has cut back on a lot of that and made a lot of people change their roles. That's besides the point. But I'm working in highlights and I'm working with college football breakdowns Now breakdowns we got to do a lot of cool stuff. That's where I got to really shine as my sports knowledge, with my love of football, my love of sports all of that got to shine in this part.

Speaker 1:

And I got to work directly with on-air talent. As a PA in ESPN. You didn't get to work with on-air talent besides the host for Sports Center. Really With on-air talent, I'm working with former football. I mean talking some of the best of the best college football players ever former football. I mean talking some of the best of the best college football players ever Jesse Palmer, joey Galloway. I worked with Chip Kelly when he worked for ESPN a couple of years. I got to work with the best Booger McFarlane, all of these former athletes.

Speaker 1:

I got to be direct line of communication with them and the producer and that's the key. I got to work with the producer a lot. The producers would rely on me because of how well I was handling the talent. So that's another aspect. Here I learned skillset, wise communication. What's your communication skills like? With talent Can you produce them. I got to kind of live on an island and say I'm going to sell you this breakdown segment for a fill. A fill is when a college football game ends really early because it went fast, which never happens anymore, because timing college football games take forever now and I hate it.

Speaker 1:

But, um, if a college football game ended earlier, a college basketball game ended early, we had a fill by fill means is you have a 20 to 30 or whatever minute long span, but for the next game starts, or the next set of programming that's taped or live that comes on next on ESPN, you got to fill it in as a studio part and that's the wraps part of this whole thing. So I would sell breakdown segments of hey, you know, we got a breakdown coming from USC's quarterback here. He he's really bad with, uh, again, zone coverage. Joey Galloway has got a really good breakdown on it. We can throw that in Great, let's throw a couple of highlights in there, let's throw some other stuff in there and we fill for however long we needed to fill before we threw to the next tape programming. Got to get my experience with all that. From there I said, okay, I really like this, I really like working with talent, I really feel important here. I feel like I'm being an AP, I feel like I'm not just a PA anymore. I'm doing more. I'm working with some producers, I'm selling them, I'm producing content. This is the part of the game I want to live in and this is something I really, really am fascinated with. So it's crazy. That's where I got myself to. And then I was like college football is great. I was never a college football fan growing up, I was always an NFL guy. But I said you know what Sunday NFL countdown and Monday night football is the two biggest products I would argue in all of ESPN's library of content and I want to work with them. The studio show for Sunday NFL countdown is one of the biggest and best, besides college game day, which I did get to work on college game day during the national football playoffs, the championship, all that. I got to work on those live productions as well, but I was never like, oh, I want to go travel and work on game day. I want to be in the studio and work with some of the best of the best when it comes to NFL, because NFL is my favorite thing in all of sports.

Speaker 1:

I interviewed with the Sunday Countdown crew. I sold them my own position, a breakdown producer, the first time ever. They never had this on their show. They always had a rotation of PAs and APs working with all the talent. So you're talking about. If I'm Randy Moss, I got six different PAs reaching out to me about six different breakdowns that they're each working on. That I have to remember.

Speaker 1:

Throughout the show I said, instead of making that six different people's jobs, make that one person's job and make that me. And let me do that. And let me sell you on why I could do this so well. Because I worked on ABC, espn, espn2, college football programming all in one day. I produced all of their breakdowns for one day and I got to do that the entire week leading up and I made my own schedule and I got to do my own job. And that's where Tim I think you know this I like working a little bit on an Island, but I also love working within a team. But like I want to, I want to grind, I want to work. So I sold this position to the Sunday countdown coordinating producer, the CP, which is the highest position. Matthew Garrett love that guy. He taught me so much about my career.

Speaker 1:

Chad Minitello was the producer he still is for Sunday NFL Countdown. He had started with Berman. He started off as a PA on the show and then worked his way as a feature producer and now he's the show line producer for NFL Countdown Monday night countdown as a PA that produced all of the breakdowns for every single talent, member and anchor on the shows. They were like sold done. When can you start? I'm like let's go this next coming football season.

Speaker 1:

So I started off as a PA, the producer for them. I wasn't an AP yet, even though I was doing AP work or as a segment producer, let's be honest, because breakdowns are a vital part of what Sunday NFL countdown is. Monday night football is because I think fans love watching these analysts break down these games and players and stats and what's going on in these games, cause they're giving their actual analysis in those part of the of of video. So, um, I started my first season when I think it went well.

Speaker 1:

It was just very overwhelming, don't forget. You're overwhelming yourself with a new schedule Thursday through Monday. You're working nights, every single night, but you're learning a lot more. You're learning about a different part of ESPN that you never thought you learned before, because, while this is a live show that you're working on, it's different because you're in preparation for a three hour show on Sunday and a two hour show on Monday. It's not every day where you're like oh, I got a new show today, I got a new show today. I got a new show today, you know.

Speaker 2:

And it's not guaranteed that all of those segments produced to the hilt are even going to make air. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

We can get into that too. But I mean, the first season it was tough, it was a grind, but I learned a ton. And I also worked on Sunday mornings. My producer, chad, wanted to introduce live cameras in fan parking lots and I had to produce those too, on top of the breakdowns that I was doing, all in preparation for the week. Now, mind you, thursdays are starting out with talent calls, one-hour call sessions previewing all the games and all the stats and all the breakdowns. They want to do all the segments that we're going to do for the show and get their analysis for every single. And you're talking about 16 football games. We're getting previews for all 16 of them and that's all jammed into one one-hour call for one analyst. You add five analysts for Sunday NFL countdown, another three for Monday countdown. That's eight calls in one day, each one of them one hour. That's eight hours right there alone just on phone calls. But you still have to go find the footage of the plays. You have to find the clean, melt version of the plays. You have to go get all this video in preparation, send those packages out to the analysts, have them look at all the different angles you have available for each play. Now this is fresh for them because they'd never experienced where someone like me.

Speaker 1:

I organized it game by game, player by player, breakdown by breakdown. I literally cut all these things, sent them Vimeo links Vimeo, they would watch them down. Give me time codes, give me analyst notes, ring here, arrow here, graphic there, put a freeze here. So we use a system called Axis here. Let's do so. We use the system called axis. Axis is a breakdown system where we animate all of our objects and rings and arrows and and graphics. All of it's done on this, the system called axis, and there's very talented editors I work on and some not so talented editors I would work with as well. So I would have to fight with them literally almost to the point of physical altercation. I'm like you, fucking suck at your Like. Get the fuck off my axis machine. I need an actual person that can do this, to the point where I would scream at time, 40 minutes in New York's coming out baby yeah.

Speaker 1:

No, but like you get frustrated, right, because you're on a timeline deadline. These guys aren't living on these machines 24-7. They're only working in shifts. So you have to work with new people sometimes and it would really frustrate you. It would really bog you down through anything in production when you're working with someone new who hasn't been doing this for a while. You have a system in place and you want that system to work. But I would work with them and you would get it done. That's the end of the day. You get it done.

Speaker 1:

Saturday night you're literally to go home and then you're going to wake up and two hours later it's at 5.30 am to go back to ESPN because you've got to get ready for the Sunday morning show, which starts at 10, because there's so much more prep work. You have on Sunday morning, game day, baby Game day. So Chad would add these cameras, because we have cameras that are sent to all these games with the reporters, right, they're sent to all these sites. So that's a whole thing in itself. I had to manage also these live cameras feeds because they would put me in the media room during the shows on 10 am and the media room is where I get the feeds from all, I would say it's anywhere from 10 to 14 different camera feeds coming in and I am watching all of them. So, after I've been grinding all week on these breakdowns and making sure that the produce mind you, saturday nights I know I'm skipping all over the place, but Saturday nights I would be with the talent at the hotel across the street from ESPN and I'd be showing each and every single one of them, the breakdowns, in front of the producers, in front of my executive bosses at ESPN who are watching the meetings, making sure that all that's good. And I'm showing my work in front of all them. And they're literally going yeah, f, that guy, that guy stinks. I can't believe he made that cut on that play. So I'm loving this. I'm learning more about football from them.

Speaker 1:

First and foremost, I'm working with Randy Moss, rex Ryan, teddy Bruschi, steve Young. I'm working with adam schaefter. I'm working with the best of the best when it comes to analysis. Guys that you never thought in your dreams I would be having phone numbers from randy moss, steve young, all rex, ryan. All these guys are in my phone, but they're so nice and they're they're good to work with. Some of them are more pains in the asses to work with than others. You'll find this one if you work in talent like some on-air talent are easy to work with. Some on-air talent is not so easy to work with and you kind of have to baby that relationship. But I got to be on that island with the producer as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah I would submit that that ability to manage all of All of the different personalities is soft skill, slash hard skill. That's not something I can teach ever, but I can see it in someone's personality that they are willing to do what it takes, do what it takes, and if that means back off or if that means push a little bit to get the desired effect for a piece of content, there's not many that understand that part of it. It's not just X's and O's, to steal a bad analogy. What you're describing is much more people skill and understanding people and getting to know each one of those that you named to be able to slightly skew what you're communicating differently.

Speaker 1:

Oh, a hundred percent. That's something I never thought I would learn is how to manage all of those different talents Because, like you said, every one of them has a different communication, set of skills, a different mindset about the work they want put in for them. Because, don't forget, you're representing them with what you're producing on air, with that video piece of breakdown that you're putting on air. That's representing them and their thoughts and what they're doing in their analysis.

Speaker 2:

well, if you name three, of those guys one's a coach, one's a linebacker, one's a wide receiver. They have different perspectives of the game oh yeah, I mean the court.

Speaker 1:

And don't forget the quarterbacks I work with. Steve young was a ste much X's and O's. He was more a philosophy guy as a quarterback, meanwhile Matt Hasselbeck was I need the all 22 of this play. I need the high end zone look on this play. I need the quarter look on that play. We need to do a rotation. So you learn a lot more. But also, I learned more about football from Matt Hasselbeck than I ever learned from anyone else, because he could tell you about every single play that's going on in the field and what the play call is and what the defense is doing here and what the offense is doing there.

Speaker 2:

You adapted. Oh yeah, the adaptability part is hard. I can recognize it, but it's really hard to teach it because you have to be in that situation.

Speaker 1:

You can't wilt under that pressure and you have to be in that situation. You can't wilt under that pressure and you have to represent yourself. Tim, you have to be like.

Speaker 1:

I know football too, you have to advocate, because if you don't advocate for yourself and say, no, I know what you're talking about, coach. I know this play. I know the situation. I know what you're talking about. They'll call bullshit on that, on you. And they don't want to work with people who don't know football right, because that makes their job harder. And let's be real, we're talking about. People are being paid millions of dollars to be on air. They don't want to deal with people that aren't professional.

Speaker 2:

So you have to know your shit, in other words, the Zoom pod will be right back At ZoomWithOurFeetcom.

Speaker 3:

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Speaker 2:

Thanks, and now back to the show. I want to make sure that I connect the thread to now the current career, connect the thread to now the current career, and that is that you are now in that more senior executive position, hiring, I'm sure, dealing with folks. I'm sure you touched on it when we were chatting before we were recording. So where does the transition from the meat grinder come to your current position at the New York Post?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it was during COVID. I was already on year three of working on Countdown, for both Sunday and Monday Countdown. I wasn't only just an AP at this point, because I did get promoted after my first year on Sunday and Monday Countdown, working with talent. They really love what I did. I got to work on the NFL Draft, which was always my dream. That's an amazing production to put on and it takes thousands of people to put that on. Who did the Jets pick the first year I worked on the draft was the Jets. Actually, the Jets picked Quinton Williams, but it was number three overall. It was in Nashville, tennessee. If you remember, tim, it was the first draft that was outside of New York City. I went to Nashville.

Speaker 1:

I got to work in the truck. I got to do incredible work there, working with the ENG Is that what the hell is the terminology? I'm sorry because I haven't worked in a truck in forever, but, um, the replay guys, uh, next to me, but like avs, avs, yes, so Elvis working with the Elvis operators. So I would sit next to them, produce them. We would ingest all of our tapes all in tapes by me and our digital tapes. All of our content would come in. I got to archive all that in the machine, pull up number codes of what highlight package. I did this also in wraps. I got to work on the college football playoffs and work all week long producing live content from a truck. And you want to talk about truck experience?

Speaker 1:

That was incredible, got to work on live productions, man, you're loading up clips in three different EVS machines and then after you're doing live rap shows, like previews and postgames oh, now we're going to actually do the live production of the show, like previews and post games. Oh, now we're going to actually do the live production of the show and we have to produce a pregame, a halftime and a post game show with sound coming in from the field, sound coming in from the post game locker room video camera cameras all over the field. You're talking about not just because this is a college football playoff for ESPN, you're talking about 25 to almost 30 camera feeds. You're managing here and you're watching all of them and you're making sure all the machines are loaded up with the tapes and footage that you need. That was incredible, that experience.

Speaker 1:

But go to later in my career at ESPN. I worked there for seven years. My third year on Sunday Countdown. I got to be an AP, managing the talent, working on the producer breakdowns. I also got to work behind the producer, chad, and I worked in the AP spot and I really got to learn a lot about communicating in a control room.

Speaker 1:

And you want to talk about chaos in your ear, tim? Chaos in your ear. You're talking to 30 different people. I'm talking to reporters on site. They're line producers that are on site with them at the football games, the camera guys that are live in the parking lot. I got my producer in front of me, chad, yelling at me Where's my warmup of Josh Allen on the field? I got my AP over here asking for a cut sheet. There's no cut sheet for that warmup buddy. Last shots at 20 freezes at 25. That's when you're fucking out is. I got the director saying is it loaded up in blue or gold? Where is it? It's in gold. Okay, it's in gold. Okay, take gold, go how much time do I?

Speaker 1:

have left. You're literally doing all of this during Sunday NFL countdown. Those skills I never thought I would learn. But I'm telling you right now, if you ask me to throw me back in there, I could do it. But I also stressed me the F out and I said I don't know if I can do this anymore. My body's killing me, it's not sustainable brother.

Speaker 2:

Why do you think I'm sitting here?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean you want to talk about getting burnt out. I mean you're grinding. I was putting like 70, 75 hours in a work week on two shows. But it was a grind and it was hard and I'm not going to whine about it because it taught me so much about life and taught me so much about this career and this path. But I also said there's something bigger, right, tim? Because I said I could do this for the rest of my life. Make it a grind, make it hard on myself and really love what I do. But I also said and this is where you asked me, how did this turn for my current career?

Speaker 1:

I said I want to be a little bit in that management role because I think I've done this enough, where I've learned enough skills. I've learned the set of being in a control room, working in a truck, working on live productions, working on these massive, massive millions of people watching productions. I've worked on games. I've worked on all of it. I said I want to be in ESPN's management part over here. I want to work in content programming. And they're like what you want to work in content programming? I'm like, yes, and this is during the heart of COVID, when a lot of the business was starting to shift and I said I want to work in content programming because I believe I know what's good content and I believe I know what's going to work for ESPN in its future.

Speaker 1:

What sports are going to. We should be highlighting what, what games we should be covering. I want to be in the negotiations with the leagues. I want to do all that. That's the end game for me. That's where I think that can make myself as a career, because while I am stubborn, I am also someone that wants to learn. I'm someone that has an opinion that wants to share it, but also I want to find out what other people have to say about these things and how they're working into them, and I also think I could be a huge contributor for the future of the company and this is Disney that owns ESPN.

Speaker 1:

Well, I found out the hard way, tim, that it is absolutely impossible to work your way up at ESPN. It took me seven years to be an AP and be an AP for a couple of years, and they wouldn't promote me to segment producer, even though I should have been. So I gave them two options. I said let me go work in New York, because I kind of miss New York. And I was in the middle of Connecticut and I said I didn't enjoy Connecticut anymore. Connecticut was just central Connecticut. There's nothing really there. There's no beaches, there's no city. It's West Hartford I'm living in. You're in Bristol, connecticut. It's the middle of nowhere in Connecticut and this is not where I want to live the rest of my life. But I can do this job remote. You found a lot about COVID. You could do this job remote because I'm on video calls with all the talent. I'm on the phone with them saying, hey, what's the breakdown I want to do? I'm working on my laptop 24-7. I can do this from home and I can do this job from New York and I can make this work.

Speaker 1:

They tried to make it happen. I kept getting rejected from HR. They wouldn't approve me to work in New York. And then I said, okay, I want to go work in the content programming. And they said we don't have a job for you. You have to still make more connections. And I took classes, I learned, I observed, I did all the work I can try and do and suck up and kiss ass and try and work my way into that part of the job. They said, no, I go. Okay, I'll go find another job then. And they're like no, no, no, no, don't do that, don't do that. You're a very invaluable part of this part of what you do. I go. I don going from AP to producer. Sign me the hell up for that.

Speaker 1:

Now I didn't know what I was signing myself up for because I'm like, let me go interview for this job. So I interviewed for the job the manager. He's the vice president of the New York Post video department. His name's Warren. He goes really like you. Your resume's very, very strong. I think you'd do great here. And not to mention my reference.

Speaker 1:

One of them was Matt Hasselbeck, who swore up and down for me. He was like hell, yeah, hire this guy. You'd be making a mistake if you didn't hire him. So I get this job offer and I'm talking about Tim. At ESPN, I was salary eligible for overtime. I had to make so much overtime to just make You're in a box yeah, a decent living, right. I had to make so much overtime just to make a decent living. New York Post comes forward with an offer which would have made me. I'm like yeah, done, because the offer it was oh, and also, you know what else they offer, tim, besides the money. You're going Monday to Friday. What? No more weekends. I don't have to work weekends anymore. Like no, I'm like done, done, done, done and I get to move back to New York and I get to move back to Long Island where I grew up.

Speaker 2:

Serious question.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, where did the girl enter the picture? Not for about a year and a half, until after I moved back to New York and was established back in the city. I'm just checking on you. No, no, no, it's a great question.

Speaker 2:

Let me tell you from personal experience the reason I ask that is even on the technical side, the engineer side, the camera side, editors, evs, ops, it's a graveyard of broken relationships because some of the guys I would dare to say many of the guys have the golden handcuffs and it's just enough prestige, it's just York union, it's all unionized, it's all. We were daily hires for the union. They are figuratively and literally golden handcuffs. And I got to the same point right where I was leaving home and my spouse on the week after Valentine's Day and wasn't coming back until April because I was doing the swing through Florida on the golf tour.

Speaker 2:

You know 35 weeks of golf, and so, to hear you almost venting, I was having flashbacks to having to make that decision of walking away. I mean, I miss the boys, like you said, I miss the boys. Like you said, I miss the boys, I miss the work, uh, the actual camera work. But I got four degenerative discs in my back that say I don't like climbing up golf towers and and traveling and miss travel and all of and and all of that stuff, the long nights, tim, the early mornings.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just to get to the meat grinder. That is the show. So I want for me this is always educational to have someone as young as you say that it's either work on their time and maybe, if you survive the meat grinder, you might get a shot at something or take the other job that adds back in all of uh, all of the ability to just be human again oh, correct, my, yeah, yeah, I mean my my life completely changed, uh, when I left espn and again it's invaluable experience.

Speaker 1:

Like you said, you come to that crossroad of do you want to do this the rest of your life? Because there are. We call them lifers, espn lifers are who they are and they're going to stay there the rest of their lives. They find their wife up there in Connecticut, they find their, they, they move everything there and that's where they're going to stay the rest of their life because they love the grind, they love the hustle. That's good on them, but for me, I always thought there's a step above for me, tim, right. And then also, the same time, what's my quality of life at this point? And I said I had already broken up in a relationship, I was in long-term and I couldn't make it happen anymore here at ESPN. And I tried to choose that first. And I said you know what? You're not happy anymore, they're not honoring you, they're not helping you advance your career. Because I think some of those lifers get stuck in that moment, tim, where they're like I'm good, just doing this job.

Speaker 1:

The rest of the time at ESPN, I'll be the editor, I'll be the camera person. I'll be the PA. I'll be the AP the rest of my life and I don't care if I move forward. And for me, I'm like no, no, no, no I've. I got into this thing because I want to, I want to make an impact and I also want to continue to grow and learn and get better and find that passion again. So I found it at the post. Now, mind you, you're like Ryan, you left ESPN to go to a newspaper. What the F? Are you thinking? Right, like I'm sure that's what a lot of people said. I'm like all right, but the world had changed.

Speaker 2:

You understood that the world had changed, the technology had changed, the world of media had changed. The Post isn't a paper man. It's a piece of the larger pie.

Speaker 1:

It's a digital entity now and it's something that I've found because, again, the New York Post is owned by News Corp. News Corp is Fox, it is Fox News, it is the New York Post, it's the Wall Street, it's the sky, it's the sun, it's the wall. I believe it's the Wall Street Journal, or something like that. They own not journal but the Times, or something like that. They own not journal but the times, or something like that. They own everything when it comes to major media in New York and also in the nation. Like I am moving into an entity here at 1211 Midtown, new York.

Speaker 1:

I never thought in my dreams I had to be working in one of the biggest New York global media companies in the world and it's here in New York city, somewhere, somewhere I didn't think I'd be every day of my life, but I commute and I do it now. So now I got a new challenge. I'm commuting to the city every day. Where am I working? The reason I took this job too, tim, is because I knew when I took this job, they had made a partnership with SNY Sportsnet New York. Then the SNY had broadcast and they were a local, regional sports network. They still are regional sports network, which we learned so much in college with you, from Fox sports Ohio and all that a regional sports network in New York city, and they broadcast the Mets games every day and they do all the pre and post game coverage for the New York jets. They made a partnership with the New York post and saying we want to make digital content together that goes on our YouTube channels, that goes to our site and cover all New York local sports, local New York sports.

Speaker 1:

I don't care what anyone says. We do it different from everywhere else. You can argue till you're blue in the face. We do it fucking different, we're better and we're bigger and we do it the most out of anyone. In the entire world, in the entire country, new York sports is different. That's why I got to tell everyone, so I knew what I was getting myself into. I was, I was. I was an evening, a four to midnight, monday through Friday.

Speaker 2:

Billy Joel's New York is playing in my head right now.

Speaker 1:

That's right, and we cover every single local sports team and on the New York post we cover a lot of national coverages too, for for sports news and and news and off the field things. So with that, I had a team of four under me, I had a PA, I had an AP and I had an editor. So it was all of us working together and producing digital content for YouTube, digital content for New York Post website, sny's website, sny's YouTube channel. But there's more than. When they just started, they were just doing standups, covering the basics, interviewing reporters. I was like all right, this is fine, this is cookie-cutter shit, but now let's really do some fun stuff.

Speaker 2:

You did more than that at Ashland.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I'm like we can do more here, so I had started advancing. What about our podcast? Podcast should be video first now, because, guess what? That's where a lot of people are consuming their podcast Tim. They consume on YouTube, they consume now on Spotify, which is video first. Now, believe it or not, they're all going to video. That's where you need your podcast to live, and podcasts are a vital part of sports coverage. People go to podcasts for sports coverage every single day. I listen to sports podcasts when I go to the gym every day. That is my bread and butter. While sports radio hasn't died in New York, because there's so many fans here and there's millions of people listening to sports radio still every day, they still listen to the sports podcast as well.

Speaker 2:

But I bet all those guys have podcasts, oh yeah, and all those radio stations have podcasts.

Speaker 1:

They all distribute everything into podcasts as well. But I had said we have our own podcasts already here at the New York Post, one for each sports team. Why not start working on those for video? And that's where I started advancing my career. A year and a half, two years, in my Warren, who had hired me, said do you want to be an executive producer here? Because you have a knack for this, you have a mindset of how you want to grow our digital department. We actually broke up a partnership after two years with SNY because I had convinced Warren to build our own studios here at the New York Post. We built our own sports studio, we have a green screen set. We have a podcast set I had designed. I started actually planning and making our own content original content plan Because instead of borrowing the studios from SNY and paying them millions of dollars to use that, now we do it here in-house, save a couple bucks. And now we're actually making our own original content. And now it's about growing our YouTube platform. It's about making social cuts, vertical cuts. For us, it's about making digital series that fans are going to continue to tune in for. So it's about that game and that's where we're at right now and for me.

Speaker 1:

I lead a team on the day, the night and the weekend. I have overseen a lot of these hires. Some of them started as interns with me. I help make them grow and learn how to cut social media cuts, edit that way, use Premiere Pro to your advantage, use Photoshop to your advantage. Have them work on those things first, advance those skills and then start thinking as a producer. Will this work on social? Will this work on YouTube? Will this work on site? And then I really dug into the analytics part on the New York Post, because we track all of our data on what's clicking on our site, how many people are clicking through, how many people are watching the video, what's the watch time. And I do the same thing with our YouTube reps. And now it's just managing all that and strategizing our content. Oh, and, mind you, now I also get the opportunity because of changes in our department, because I felt like we weren't hardcore enough in sports, because that's how I think I told him, I told Warren, I go, let's start actually doing real fun X's and O's and diving into football. And I took over the Jets podcast and I started a new Yankees show. That is a vodcast, if you want to call it that. It's video first with one of the best and biggest baseball columnists in the world, joel Sherman, and he started off as a Yankees beat writer in the early 90s. He covered the dynasty. He was there. This man knows baseball like the back of his hand and me and him have started a a really fun Yankee show that's starting to take off and has some some real steam here locally. He keeps telling me he's getting national people walking up to him saying I love the Yankee show you're doing with Ryan. That guy's fun. Like this is fun content, so I'm having fun with it.

Speaker 1:

Tim I, in my wildest dreams I never thought I'd be one anchoring and hosting to producing and three, being executive producer overseeing the entire sports content strategy department. I now work so closely with our sports head for the newspaper, even though he's not a newspaper or sports at anymore, but he still worked there with the newspaper part, but now he's in charge of the entire sports department. Chris Shaw, great boss, one of the best bosses I've ever had in my life. He and I work hand in hand and he loves working with me. He loves my attitude, he loves asking me questions about this digital space and where it's going and how social media is important now and where we can advance that. It's been a fun ride so far for the first three years three and a half years now it's been a fun ride so far for the first three years three and a half years now.

Speaker 2:

You just answered my next question with, and I quote I'd lose my teacher card if I didn't ask you what keeps driving you?

Speaker 1:

It's the content man. It's the content right, I get to make content decisions. This is what I wanted to do, because, as you work with ESPN and you work as you first start with the New York Post, it's like you're being told what to wanted to do. Because, as you work with ESPN and you work as you first start with the New York Post, it's like you're being told what to do for content and you're just doing them and you're like, okay, I'm executing at an advanced level, but now I need to start being an actual producer, start making original content, and that, for me, is fun and that, for me, is challenging because it's not easy. I'll tell people that all the time. Like you think you could be a producer. It's like, once the spotlight's on you, now you got to really start making ideas happen and come to fruition.

Speaker 1:

How are you going to shoot it? How are you going to execute it? What graphics are you going to use? What video are you going to use? How are you going to edit it? What's the publishing going to be like? What's the strategy for social? What's the titling? All of that comes into phase now and how you think about all these things and for me that's the fun part of this, that's the meat grinder of this part of the job. But it's not a. My life sucks and I can't do this anymore and I'm up at 5 am and I'm like no, no, no, I have that pleasure of, and I know I'm going long and I know this is a long show, but I am finally at a point in my life where, like Dude brother, you know that.

Speaker 1:

But Monday through Friday I get to make content and then oversee the weekends, but I get to live my life, tim. I get to live my life working in New York sports. It's the best place to be. I can't tell anyone this anymore. It's like, yeah, I did the national thing with espn for a lot of years and I learned a lot. But the local part, man, this is where I fell in love with sports and this is where I get to actually make content for people who fall in love with sports as well I'm so proud of you, all right.

Speaker 2:

So here's the pay it forward questions that I end all my shows on. All right, it's two parter. You have worked at all the skill levels and now you are hiring people in different skill levels. You mentioned from interns up to editors, and that's interns up to editors and that's you're putting together teams, as I see it, right. So my question to you is tell me what you look for in a potential hire, right? What are the hard skills and the soft skills that you're keyed on and and again? I expect nuance in that. I could teach them this. I don't know about this. So what? What do you tell young ryans that come before you that they need to do?

Speaker 1:

uh. So I tell them first and foremost, and what I'm looking for on their resumes are what are your editing skills like? Like, what have you worked on editing software wise? Have you worked on Premiere Pro, because that's what we use? Have you worked on After Effects? Have you worked in Photoshop? Have you worked with Avid? If you have with Avid, premiere Pro is an easier step down from that. I want to see those skills and your step down from that. I want to see those skills. And then I'm going to ask you have you converted horizontal to vertical videos? Specifically in my field, that's what we key on right, because we're converting a lot of horizontal vodcast podcasts into social cuts, so those need to be vertical safe.

Speaker 1:

Have you worked with captioning? Have you worked with creating lower thirds? Have you worked on statistical research? What is your sports background? Have you worked in live sporting events, yes or no? That is a key factor. Have you worked at your TV station? What have you done at your TV station? What are the roles you worked on? So those are the questions I always ask people when they first start applying and they're like, oh, I want to work in sports. I'm like, oh great, what's your background in editing. I've never edited before. Thank you and have a nice day.

Speaker 1:

If you can't edit in my opinion, tim, if you can't edit in this current modern day world that we live in, because everyone needs to be an editor, you have no chance of working here in this business. It's the ugly truths that I find out immediately, because what we do is, when we bring people in, we give them three-day contracts. Let's see what you got. I'm going to put you in the ringer a little bit. I'm going to throw some videos at you and I can tell who's done it before, who hasn't, who's actually opened Premier Pro and who just threw it up on their resume. Right, like you find that out real quick, because I'm not going to be over your shoulder, but I'll be sitting in the purview and I'll be like here's my set of instructions for this video. Let's see how you execute it and let's see how long it takes you to execute, because the digital world there's no deadline, but at the end of the day, we need to get it up.

Speaker 2:

No day. We need to get it up. Does that make sense? Oh, absolutely. And I think that I want to circle back to a point you made about. One of my peeves about higher education is too much is stressed on academics and not enough, and I only know one way to teach because I did it. So that's just me. But you have no idea the conversations that I had with professors about well, why don't you just have them write a paper? No, no, that's not going to get them where my students want to go.

Speaker 2:

However, for me, the line is do you want to be a camera monkey or an edit monkey all your career, or do you want to manage people in your career? And it's funny because they say well, why? I said because that's where you need to go to college, because if you're going to manage people, then you need other skills that aren't necessarily technical, because you now are such a more effective manager, because of the meat grinder, yep and because of what you're seeing things before they do and you're challenging them to get out of that comfort zone. And I totally agree about editing. I tell that to photographers all the time. Well, I want to be a photographer. Great, do you know how to use Lightroom, do you know how to use Photo Mechanic, do you know how to use the software to enhance your pictures, and they'll kind of look at me and I'll say you are not going to get hired as a photographer if you can't edit.

Speaker 2:

And you can't edit and can't edit fast, like one of the episodes past episodes that I did several ago was the olympic team photographer, jeff cable, and he was telling me that he had 15 minutes after the event to deliver pictures. Yeah, and it's like I tell that to photographers and eyes get really big. And I'm like, well, it's the way it is in the industry. There's no rule about um, unreasonable deadlines, they're all unreasonable. So now you see, you've, you've hired them, they're an intern, they're, you've hired them, they're an intern, they're starting to produce. They passed the three-day Ryan boot camp. Is that where you start to think about this person could manage?

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

That's where I started to think about.

Speaker 1:

I mean, what's the long-term If I'm hiring you, I'm not just hiring you just to do this job, right, like you said. I'm not hiring you as an editor, monkey, I'm not hiring hiring you just to do this job. Like you said, I'm not hiring you as an editor, monkey, I'm not hiring you as a PA. I'm looking to hopefully find the next talent here and can you start thinking as a producer? And that's where you really start to put them in the test of okay, you're in your shifts.

Speaker 1:

What did you work on today? What did you work on this week? What kind of content did you think that could work? What did you think didn't work? Did you pitch something to your producer? Did you pitch something to your AP? And then I also look for what's your initiative? Where is your goals and where is your exuberance of? I really want to work on this. Or hey, I really want to go cover this Yankees game because I think we can get some good content out of it. Or hey, I really want to go cover this Yankees game because I think we can get some good content out of it. Or hey, I really think we should be doing this with social media for captioning instead of this.

Speaker 2:

That's the initiative I look for.

Speaker 1:

Yes, the pitch, because I don't like Tim for me. I don't want to be a satellite boss, I don't want to be someone that's over your shoulder. Like I said, I want someone that's going to want to. You have to pitch yourself to me like, hey man, like I can do this, or have you thought about this? Or ask those questions to me, because that shows me that you actually give a flying fuck about what you're working on. Because, instead of just collecting a paycheck, like a lot of people can and I can hire those type of people if I wanted to I know, at the end of the day, they're not going to help us advance ourselves and they're not going to help us our content grow to a bigger audience. So that's where, for me, I I my mindset changed, where, like I have to, I want to find those people after that three day test.

Speaker 1:

So, okay, I can see the skills are there. Now I'm going to see what you really got in the next couple of months of like, what can you ask me? What are the content pitches that you're making for us? We have weekly meetings as a team. Are you pitching ideas in there? Are you showing that you can grow the content that we're doing and make it better. Always think it could be better. That's what I'm looking for.

Speaker 2:

It's so funny because I can hear you. I can see you doing that and telling them look, it's this big. Now it's going to get bigger and they're going to need the people that are doing my work and managing and producer work. And there is a future in this, whether you see it or not. Do you want to be a part of it or not? And so the questions that you're asking you know the only one, I would add, being a teacher who have you talked to today? Who did you talk to about how things work around here? Who have you right that notion of how does the bigger, uh, media piece work? I don't want you going down to the sale, you know there's time for that. I'm talking in our own little media production world. Who have you talked to today about how they do their job?

Speaker 1:

tim I. We got a page six. They our sports team sits next to the page six digital media production team, which is a massive team. You can learn a ton about what they're working on over there. We have an actual New York Post video digital team which works on just the news. Learn a lot from them. We have a documentary guy, anthony DelTempo, who reminds me a lot of you and John Scrotta combination, where his heart is all about the visual and he's in charge of all the cameras. He's in charge of all the cameras, he's in charge of all the studios and his job is is like does this look good? Ask him, talk to him, see what he's thinking, because he's going to give his mindset of hey, did you think about doing this differently? Did you think about shooting it this way?

Speaker 2:

so uh, what were your settings when you shot?

Speaker 1:

that. Yes, he always asked that, he always asked that. So I guess that's, that's a key, I think, for me I would definitely pay attention to for as well knucklehead in the truck.

Speaker 2:

You're just a knucklehead living in New York now, and but you are, make no mistake, my brother. You are teaching and that, for me, is the best. That, to me, means you got it. You got the process. You got what John and I were trying to do. You know, these two bald-headed, these two bald-headed, gruff, white-bearded knuckleheads, had a method to the madness and you got it, and that makes me really proud. Dude, thank you for being on.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me and thank you for helping me start this entire journey that I'm on right now, and I wouldn't be here if I didn't start there in those small classrooms in Ashland in the basement with you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, brother.

Speaker 1:

Thank you Tim.

Speaker 2:

Thanks again to New York Post executive producer of media, ryan Sampson. You can check out all of his team's work at nypostcom. Looking for gear or a cool photography t-shirt? You can trick out your kit and your wardrobe in our shop. Use affiliate links from SmallRig, adorama and Printique. Remember, anytime you purchase using our links, we may get a small commission that keeps the show going. The Zoom With Our Feet podcast is a production of TV Commando Media. You can also find our great lineup of podcast guests at zoomwithourfeetcom, apple Podcasts and Spotify. Until next time, storytellers, do all the hard work up front to make your career happen.

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Timothy "TMac" McCarty

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