Matthew Desmond on building the Sports Creative Community
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Matthew Desmond is the Founder of the Sports Creative Community, a group of creative professionals in the sports industry with over 4,800 active members. After working on creative teams at sports and media organizations, Matthew saw a need to bring together the sports community to collaborate and share best practices. In just two years, the Sports Creative Community has a thriving Slack group, regular events, a podcast, and more. We go behind the scenes to talk about growing membership in a community, strategies for keeping members engaged, and building a community culture.
Transcript
Brian Bosche:
Welcome back to creativeBTS podcast. I'm Brian Bosche and today I am so excited to have on Matt Desmond, the founder of The Sports Creative community. Matt, how's it going?
Matthew Desmond:
It's going great. Thanks for having me, Brian. I'm really looking forward to being on the podcast today.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, well, we met, I don't know, three or four years ago, a long time when the athletics were sloped customers. And we went into film a case study video with you guys, but would love to just hear a little bit more about your background to start off with.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah, no, thanks. Yeah. It's been nice to meet you face to face now, but, so yeah, a little bit about my background is I've been in the sports industry for about 10 years now. Worked my way up. I started in minor league baseball, worked in college athletics for five years, and then it's taken me to major league baseball.
Matthew Desmond:
So it's been a great journey and I've been able to learn from all my stops. So I'm just really fortunate to be in this business. But yeah, now it's really propelled me to create a community like The Sports Creative community right now.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. And so while you've been working through your career, have you had a specific focus? I know you're a video producer, but everyone's kind of a jack of all trades at this point for the creative side. So what's been kind of your primary focus and growth as a creative?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. Starting out, it's really interesting because I wanted to be a sports anchor when I was going through college. And then as you go through college, you kind of go through some different phases and different career paths. So my sophomore year, I wanted to really go into the behind the scenes and really fall in love with the storytelling. And that's really where my career led. But actually after graduating, I started in the live production aspect of sports video. So I started in live production, I was there for a couple years and then, I really wanted to get back into storytelling and that's what led me into more of the content production realms. And that's where I've been ever since.
Brian Bosche:
Nice. And you've been in sports for a, for a long time now, where do you see kind of the role of creative and sports going? Because it's a pretty unique industry where you are storytelling for sports organization, but then your branded content, the branded sponsors who are giving you a good chunk of revenue as a team, basically look at you as a media company to help produce content for them. So would love to kind of hear the evolution of creative and sports seemed to have evolved a lot over the last decade or so, so I'd love to hear kind of your thoughts on that growth.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. I mean, I think this industry has changed so much since I've entered it and I still consider myself pretty young.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah.
Matthew Desmond:
It's funny because when I was an intern I was editing off tape in my first internship. And if I were to talk to my intern these days, they're like, "What's tape?"
Brian Bosche:
Yeah.
Matthew Desmond:
So it's crazy. But yeah, I think where creative has been in the industry, it's always evolving and that's what makes us industry so unique and just so competitive because there's so many talented people in this industry, they're just trying to push the envelope every day. As far as where creative's going and where it's heading, I think we're in a really unique situation because I think a lot of athletes are starting to illustrate that they want to have a presence on social media. They really want to have a brand and really want to have that presence. So I think you're going to see a lot of creatives really navigating into that individual athletes and content that's really going to focus around them. So I really feel like you're going to be seeing a lot more athletes having that presence rather than just all the teams pushing the contents through the teams accounts and the company accounts. You're going to see athletes really start to have that presence.
Brian Bosche:
And how do you see the relationship between the team and the player? Because you're using the players in a lot of your content, but then they also have a largely their own media company and own presences outside of the team. So what's that balance like between kind of team produced content versus their individual produced content?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. I see a lot of teams that essentially the team and the players, they work together.
Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew Desmond:
So you're going to be working with the athletes and making sure that the visions are met for each person. Obviously as the needs and the wants are becoming more of an ask from the athletes, you might be seeing more opportunities created for creatives joining either their individual production companies or the teams are getting over inundated with requests from individual athletes, maybe that creates more positions and more opportunities for creatives joining companies and teams.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah.
Matthew Desmond:
So it's a really interesting dynamic because, you know, I think it's going to allow this industry just to grow even more.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. There's been some funny jokes on different podcasts and media sites where it's, how good of a player do you actually need to be to start your own media company or be a producer? In the NBA, do you have to average 10 points a game? What's your hitting percentage have to be? But you just see so many players now kind of launching their own platforms.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah.
Brian Bosche:
And it'll be interesting how teams evolve with that.
Matthew Desmond:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
And then with sponsors, I know branded content's a big part of, revenue for different teams. My sister in law, Skylar Smith works for the Sounders and right now during the pandemic, it's a lot of branded content with the sponsors when there's not a lot of play. So how have you kind of seen that grown the last few years and where do you see that going a little bit more?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. Branded content, I think it's very essential because those brands, they want to be evident and the sports world and I think they really coexist with sports. So you've been seeing a lot of engagements from your typical in stadium and advertising and in stadium promotions to it shifting to more of a digital presence. And even with the pandemic going on, you're seeing a lot of these brands getting a lot more creative on how they can create a partnership with teams, companies, athletes.
Matthew Desmond:
So before the whole pandemic hit, I don't think anyone even heard of Zoom, but that's probably the biggest partner or company to come out of COVID-19 in a positive way, because it's being able to connect us in so many different variables. So I think how our company's really looking at sponsorships and adapting in the sports world, I think it's kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier. It's like this industry is ever evolving, it's always changing. So that in an essence is really making sure that the companies and sponsors are adapting with the times. So I think you're going to see more of a digital, virtual presence, and maybe that goes into even more of a user friendly activation for maybe augmented reality, virtual reality, whatever it might be. Anything they can do to be ahead of the game, I think that's what they're going to do.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Well it seems like sports really attracts the cutting edge and a lot of the young talent. And so who are always on the trends and trying to push that, like you said, pushing the envelope and it's competitive because it's so popular to go into the sports industry. I can see why that's a natural partnership with the brands where they want to get a piece of that and kind of get access to that talent. And speaking of the talent and competitive industry, I've worked with a lot of sports organizations now through Slope and Smartsheet, and it is a really strong community. It kind of shocked me how you all know each other, #smsports, all the social media people know each other.
Brian Bosche:
You have a pretty consistent flow of events throughout the year from different sponsors where you meet with each other. And I went to one of the conferences and the Twitter sports conference and every social media manager was there, a lot of digital media people were there. They all knew each other, they had spent years together. You shift teams around a lot. So kind of, what do you think makes the sports creative community unique among like different industry communities?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. Like you were saying, we're in such a niche community, but people from the outside may say, "Oh wow, that's such a big community" or, "You all work in sports, it must be so hard to see who is working at which team." But in reality, it's such a small community because we work at only maybe a couple different facets of the industry. And it's all combined in creative. Because when you look at a front office, only probably about a 10th of a staff is it's going to be in a creative capacity. So when you look at it from a big picture, that's not a lot of people. So, the whole idea is you get this community together and creatives thrive off other creatives. So we can support each other in that sense, that's a great way to kind of move forward as a community.
Matthew Desmond:
So when we get together and we're able to just talk shop, I think that's just the biggest take away is we're able to just talk organically and grow as a community. So when people ask like, "Hey, how can I get involved?" I'm like, "Well, I think everyone knows everyone in this community. So, you have to be on the top of your game at all times and you've got to make sure that you're doing the right thing because one time you don't do it, it's really going to be a red flag on your resume."
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. And speaking of how to get involved, the sports creative community, which is on Slack and a number of other channels now... How many people are in that Slack group? It's almost 4,000.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. So we're up to a 4,600 people.
Brian Bosche:
Wow.
Matthew Desmond:
We're just had our two year anniversary starting year three. So yeah, that started just because I had sent to a conference one year and I was talking with some other creatives and we said, "Hey, we get together once a year and we're able to network and talk shop, but after we go home from that convention we really lose touch." And I was like, "That's not right. We work in such a fascinating industry, we need to really just keep networking and collaborating around the clock." And I think that's what made our community so great because it's been born organically. So yeah, we really have just gone from zero to 100, literally so fast. And it's been amazing just seeing the growth of the community and where it's at today.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. So why did you guys choose Slack as the platform? Because there's Twitter, which people are really active on, there's all these other channels. What makes Slack unique as a kind of a platform to build these communities?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of options we could have gone when I was talking to other creatives, they're like, "Yeah, we have all these other social media platforms that we can go to." You have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, but there's not really a way to divide it so it's just a specific industry or a specific feed. So if I go on Twitter, I can follow the SMS Sports community, but all of our members aren't residing in that category.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah.
Matthew Desmond:
So we want it to go to a application where we could really be a community where we could divide everything up into different channels and make it so that everyone kind of has a presence. So when we looked at Slack, we were able to build out so many different channels, we're able to share their work, and just the advertising and word of mouth just to come to the Slack community, it's really made it a really user friendly experience. And people have really had a lot of fun and really have learned a lot from being in the community.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Give us some examples of kind of the different channels and the different topics that you can break it up into.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. So I mean, it's great because being a creative, it's just not video, it's just not graphic design, it's just not social media. So we look at it as saying, "Hey, well, this is an opportunity to help entry level folks, mid level, senior level folks." So we have a job board. I think that's a great resource in our community. We also have a showcase inspiration channel. I think that's a great opportunity for all professionals just to share their work, because a lot of times we are ourselves biggest critics and we're making something. So we might not think this might be our greatest piece of work, but in reality, you did a really good job on it and you should be proud of it.
Matthew Desmond:
So that's a great channel as well. But another one we just introduced the other day, which I think is a great channel that's going to be an amazing resource for folks is our mental health awareness channel. And I think that's really a topic that's not really talked about too much, but it really shouldn't be because it's an important conversation. And it's an opportunity for folks in the industry just to have an outlet in a safe haven, just talk about things that are going on in their lives. So it's really from professional to personal life because that's what this community is all about. We just want to be there for each other.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. I love the showcase inspiration. You've divided it by sports and different parts of creatives, like graphic design, video production. People are constantly posting in there. The engagement is what really wows me about the sports creative community is it's just there's constant posts, questions. People are giving great answers to these questions and tips. So 4,600 members in only two years, what were some of the things that worked to actually get people to join and engage in this community?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. So I mean, a lot of it was just really word of mouth and being organic. We don't want to be salesy, that's not our motive at all.
Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew Desmond:
It's just, "Hey, we're just like you, we want to help you out. I've been in your shoes before. You might've been in mine. Let's work together and let's make this community what it should be. And let's make sure that potential is going to get reached." So right now it's just a lot of buy in from people and they see just results and they see the everyday interactions from the community and then it's really encouraged people to just spread the word. And I think it's really worked out in a positive way. So I wish I could say, "Yeah, I've paid a lot of money in ads and that's how people said", but that's not how it is. And then it's just been remarkable how the community has just all come together and have really bought into the program.
Brian Bosche:
Well, it's so open, I was a vendor, we were at Slope, a startup working with sports organizations and you let me in pretty early, which is pretty amazing, kind of that open. So what's the philosophy about who can join? How do people contribute? Because it's pretty unique where I see people joining who are college students interested in getting into the field. And so it feels like a very open community as opposed to this exclusive thing, invite only.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah, it's a very open community. Like you said, there's college students in there. I'm looking back at my college career and I would have died if I would've had this community.
Brian Bosche:
Oh my God, it's amazing.
Matthew Desmond:
This is just a information at your fingertips and just all this knowledge that you're being adverse to. It's just amazing. So when you said yeah, we have vendors that are in the community, all these professionals are using products from some vendor out there. So I think it's essential to have those relationships with vendors and the professionals, because if they're able to develop a higher skill set and X amount of products or what may be it, they're advancing their skill sets in the industry and it's helping the industry as a whole. So I really think from all aspects of the industry, there's a place for everyone. So I really encourage, if you're in the sports industry, looking to get in the sports industry, there's a place for you at the table. So feel free to have your voice and make sure that you're getting your brand out there because at the end of the day, you need to have a presence and this is a perfect spot for it.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. I've been impressed. It's technology vendor, social media vendors, you had an event with a TikTok representative who's giving TikTok sports feedback and Twitter and Facebook. How have you been able to make it not kind of a salesy channel for vendors? Because those types of communities are ripe for just vendors to go in and just keep pitching their services. And I have honestly never seen that in this group. Is it just the vendors are good and understand their place? Have you had to do any policing? What has that been like?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. I mean you always have to put policing out because if you don't have any standards, any guidelines, people are going to abuse those policies. But anytime I invite a vendor to the channel, I do have a conversation with them and just say, "Hey, this is our policies. If you do break those policies we do have a three strike system." But we really haven't had any big issues with that. So we've been really fortunate in that sense. But I think everyone who's joining the community is in the correct mindset to, "Hey, this is what the community is about or looking to help the community grow." And everyone's just been able to buy in with that. So I think it's really great that they're coming in with that mindset.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. Well at 4,600 members, you do have to have these guidelines and every successful community I've seen has kind of the way of operating within the community. So what are some examples of guidelines that you've put in that you have found really effective maybe for other community managers that could borrow from a little bit?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. So when creating a community to this magnitude, we really steer a positive narrative. We do not want to be negative.
Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew Desmond:
Right now in the world. There's so much negativity floating around. There is no place for negativity. So I think when creating a community at this size, you really have to be positive and you also have to have a game plan. You just can't go into it each week and just say, "Oh yeah, well we might do this with this week" Or, "We might do that next week." You have to have a strategy. So I think it's really important to kind of read the room and then also see what your audience is describing. What do they want, what are they hungry for? So a lot of it is just listening and seeing what people want to learn and what are some issues out there. So we really bring that back to the drawing board each day and love to see, "Hey, what can we do to help the community and how can we help solve this issue?"
Brian Bosche:
So when you say we, have you built up a team that kind of helps support and moderators, because this is a hard thing to manage as one person. How have you built that team over time?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. I don't have 10 clones of myself, one's always on the clock. But yeah, I definitely have a lot of help. We have an admin team has been so supportive and they are the people behind the scenes and I couldn't do it without their help. I mean, they just do so much work and dedicate a lot of their time, so I'm very grateful for all their assistance. Yeah, and it's admins just like me, other professionals in the industry who are spending their time to help the community grow. And it's for the betterment of like being, I just want to see everyone have an equal opportunity to grow and have those resources available to them.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. And just to go into the more detailed specifics of it, even one of the first rules I think you put in was, put your team name or put your vendor name after your name. Where people know who you are, it's visible, you're not hiding behind anything or some random account. Are there other things like that, tricks and tips you've found that work really well for this?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. Well I think that's a good point you bring up there. I mean, have an identity out there because if you're just Joe Schmoe, I'm not going to know who Joe Shmoe is. It's like, I want to-
Brian Bosche:
Want to respond. Yeah.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. I want to know who you are. Have a professional picture as well, because you might think it's funny to have an unprofessional photo, but I'm going to be less likely to reach out to you.
Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew Desmond:
So definitely have a professional presence. I mean, yeah, you can be funny on there, but always make sure that it's in a good way. But yeah, and just other tips I would just say in order for this community to thrive, you need to have different channels that are going to allow different perspectives to come in.
Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew Desmond:
You can't just have a team built up of people and think just like you. I want to bring on people who think differently than me. That allows me to diversify my mind of thoughts and it allows me to bring in different avenues of topics. So diversify your community as much as you can because there's so many great people in this industry and industries out in the world that you really shouldn't be putting up a wall to people because you never know what ideas are going to come through those walls.
Brian Bosche:
How do you prevent the @general? At mentioning the entire entire channel? Or do you put restrictions on that now?
Matthew Desmond:
Oh yeah, nom only be admins can do that.
Brian Bosche:
Okay. I haven't tried in a while. I was like, "Maybe I should throw out an @general here on the general channel."
Matthew Desmond:
[inaudible 00:22:07] Started getting abused early on and when you @general, everyone's phone goes off or your desktop goes off. So in respect to people, we just really limit that just so that we can do for general, channel announcements and we just don't want it to be blowing up all day.
Brian Bosche:
Yep. Yep. That makes a lot of sense. It's very easy to spam those. "Oh, I have a new newsletter, sign up." Or, "A new product launch" and you just want to get that out and mention it.
Matthew Desmond:
Right.
Brian Bosche:
But what I've seen from successful communities like this is you have the online presence. So people are getting to know each other digitally or answering questions, but I think sports creative community, you, especially during the pandemic, the weekly happy hours, the events, the constant basically platforms, opportunities to get to know each other in person or at least through Zoom, which feels like in person now. Really solidifies those relationships with people who are more comfortable to responding. So can you talk a little bit about how you've done events, your philosophy behind events? Because I think that's really driven, you know each other maybe once a year from those other conferences, but I feel so much closer to the community because of those events.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. I mean, that's a great question you had there. So before the pandemic hit, we were set to have an event every month-
Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew Desmond:
And it was going to be great. We were looking forward to having an event in a different city, but then when COVID-19 hit, we realized, "Hey, we're not putting the safety in jeopardy of all of our members. So let's shift to a more virtual presence." So yeah, it really just happened and said, "Hey, let's have a virtual happy hour." Because at the beginning of the pandemic, we didn't know how long it was going to be. And we're still in a pandemic right now. So we're like, "Hey, let's just create a space where we can just kind of sit back, relax, talk shop. And let's just have a space where we can have fun." Because right now during that time, it was not pretty time in the world and it's still not. But as we progressed, like, "Hey, let's bring this into more of an industry setting and make it more industry specific." And that's where we really picked up a lot of steam and were able to bring a lot of the best industry minds together and just talk about the important topics out there. So looking back at it, I think we had about over 100 professionals on industry-
Brian Bosche:
Yep.
Matthew Desmond:
and it's fascinating because I never would have thought that would have happened.
Brian Bosche:
Every week.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah.
Brian Bosche:
It was such a consistent participation rate.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. We were going out there and just seeing who was interested in talking, even got John Dahl on from The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan documentary.
Brian Bosche:
That was amazing.
Matthew Desmond:
Whenever that connection got the green light, said "Yeah, John Dahl's wanting to come on." Like, "Wow, this is crazy." I never would have thought we would have had that opportunity to talk to John before The Last Dance premiered two days after this.
Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew Desmond:
So yeah, it's just been an amazing opportunity. But the biggest thing we wanted to do with these virtual hang outs is this provide a positive narrative, because it's so easy to get negative during these times. So many people here have been laid off or furloughed. So we really just wanted to keep the positivity in the room consistent, because it's so easy to get negative these days. So anything that we can do to be that positive in someone's week, that was our main goal.
Matthew Desmond:
And with either through a happy hour or there's an industry panel, or we had a mental health awareness breakout session, which I think was probably one of our best sessions because it just was an outlet for people to be real about the issues that they were going through. And that's what brings our community together. And like you said, you might not have met a person in real life, but you feel like you do because you've been in those sessions and you've been able to build up those relationships. So I think that's what makes our community really stand out from other communities out there.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. I think it's the combination of events, meeting in person, meeting through Zoom, combined with the platform, just to throw out questions and answer and engage. It's such a good combination and I think your community has done it better than I've seen in any other community I've been a part of. And so that kind of leads me to, you've grown it up to 4,600 really engaging community. What's kind of the goal? Where are you going with the community in general?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. So we're up to 4,600 members. We're worldwide as well, which is something new that we really wouldn't have thought of would have happened. But yeah, we're at that stage. So we're consistently planning for the future. I mean, we really want to position the community and the industry in the best position that we can. So in the future, we would love to create scholarship funds, relief funds to really help out with people who are going through it, an economical crisis in their household or maybe someone who is looking to get into the industry and pave a way for them to reach their goals a little easier. But we're also looking to create a scholarship for minorities in the industry because we want to see more diversity in the workplace, but those are goals that are in the future.
Matthew Desmond:
But right now, we're definitely planning to educate the community more. So we have podcasts, we're looking to have tutorials, looking to have some Twitch streams launch here in the near future. And just have more of those virtual presence so that we can continue to continue that education and build our following more on a virtual presence because I think what COVID-19 has done accidentally has prepared us to shift more to a digital virtual presence a lot sooner than we anticipated. So that's what we're doing more in our virtual presence, hopefully 2021, we'll be able to go back to more of a physical presence, but right now all of our planning is around virtual because that's what we have to do right now.
Brian Bosche:
Yep. That makes a lot of sense. I'm excited to just keep seeing it grow and to kind of close this out, I like to end every Creative BTS episode with a parting shot, your parting wisdom, if you want to sum it up for other people trying to build communities out there, for Sports Creative in general. So Matt, what would be your parting shot to give to the audience?
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah, I would just say be yourself because you are the most unique person in your network. You know yourself the best. So don't be afraid to advocate for your work, your work ethic. Just make sure that you're doing everything you can to position yourself and your team in the best position at the end of the day. So if that means going out and learning a new skill set, going out and meeting a new person, you're only helping out yourself, but you're helping out your community at the end of the day. You're helping out your company at the end of the day. So just be yourselves biggest advocate, because you're a pretty amazing individual and I think if you set the bar high, you're definitely able to reach it.
Brian Bosche:
Great. Well, thank you so much for coming on that. We really appreciate it.
Matthew Desmond:
Yeah. Not a problem. Thanks man.
