On episode #14 of Sports Geek Q&A episode Sean Callanan answers the following questions:

  • Why do sports teams suck at implementing innovation – Anon
  • How to small sports get sponsors? Rishi Singh via Linkedin
  • Why are you doing stand up comedy? Laura via Twitter
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This question came from Matt, a friend of mine. we are having coffees as an in real life question. and he asked me. How do I split my time between podcasting, Sports Geek and esports with Gravitas my League of Legends team? It's a good question. It's a question I've been asked in, in real life a lot over the last 12 months. I'll answer it in two parts. It has changed, over the past 12 to 18 months. So if you had been listening to podcasts, you know, I now own in League of Legends team, Gravitas. we secure the rights to that in November, 2018. and to be honest, 2019, a lot of 2019 was, was a lot of esports. Starting an esports team from scratch with a really small team is really hard. So 2019, a lot of time was spent in the operation side of the esports business, in helping the league align its digital strategy, in wrangling players from an esports point of view, producing content for the team, to helping negotiate team agreements with the league. so there was a lot of things being done in the space on the sports side of the business, as well as having to educate. I feel like an entire market and agencies about what opportunities exist in any sports. as a result, Sports Geek as a, as a business and from a consulting point of view and, and client work and project work probably suffered. It probably suffered mainly because I wasn't doing business development and reaching out and talking to people and finding how we could help. And then podcasting is the piece that's just left in between. Podcasting always finds the gap to be done. And so I was pretty pleased over the last 12 months, two years, to be getting pretty consistent in the, in the podcasting space. I'm really thankful for having a, I'm a trustee podcast editor in James and the workflow that we've got around, producing the podcast on a weekly basis. I'll probably spend one to two hours a week. on the podcast, whether either in interviews or in sections like this where I'm doing intros and outros and Q and A episodes. so it's not a full time gig, but there is a lot of managing of, booking interviews and those kinds of things that, that needs to happen but I've tried, I've really got it down to a bit of a fine art hopefully keeping it to two to three hours a week. so that's been, was probably last. That was probably last year. If I had answered that question last year. Matt, this year, or probably from about September onwards, sort of felt that I've got a, we've got a good grasp of the systems and operations around Gravitas and what needs to happen. and I started putting more effort into, into the sportsgeek side of the business. As well as a business, which meant more, more, more meetings and coffees and catching up with people and finding out what problems exist. And funnily enough, a lot of the problems that exist, haven't changed. And people wanting to understand how they, value their assets, improve what they're doing in the content space, cheeks in the seats. It's still an issue. help helping commercial folk better understand how they value digital and how they pitch digital. so probably 75% of my time, in 2020 and it's a, and it's probably a, it's probably something I want to maintain, will be on Sports Geek work and Sports Geek business and Sports Geek media efforts and then 25% of my time on. On a sports of an output, build out most of the systems around what needs to happen from a Gravitas point of view. with, with the support that I have from Faun, who, who drives things operationally for, for SG Esports and, and works at some of these sports projects. and Calvin and Leonard, who are the coaching team, are doing a good job managing what is a lot wider roster. So. That's the long answer of how I split my time and it has changed. It keeps changing. A clients keep moving to the front of the queue, which is good. because they, enable me to do what I'm able to do and, and give me the opportunity to work on projects , like Gravitas. So that's sort of how I split my time. I'm not podcasting all the time. For those of you who are listening, thinking, that's what I'm doing all the time. and I'm not, doing esports all the time. but I probably was last year, so, open, definitely open for business. It might've seemed like I wasn't last year. but definitely up for business. Looking forward to working with more sports geek podcast listeners in 2020.


Question number two, how do small sports get sponsors? Asks Rishi Singh. He's question is, hi Sean. There doesn't seem to be any small or niche sports that can do sponsorship. There's lots of information on getting sponsorship, but all involved get detailed advice with the expectation that's sports organizations will have the time, money, resources to devote to obtaining sponsorship. The problem is though, sponsorship needs to be done in such a way to so do the sports. What's the highest leverage advice? Do you have the smaller organizations who could really use the funds and sponsorship? Thank you, Rishi Singh. Really good question. Completely agree with your sentiment. Small sports, grassroots sports. It's something that we're currently, we have been doing recently with, with football West and sort of now got greater information on what sports teams and grassroots sports are going through. and for mine, it is, I guess, start with the small stuff and steal with pride. So steal with pride is something that, I've been saying for a couple of years now. So what are the best things that pro sports is doing that you can do and, and show that you can implement into part of it for your partners. that's the, what should we do for them to offer them? That's that part of it. The second part is exactly what pro sports need to do more of. If you're talking to a sponsor. Ask them exactly what they want. In the grassroots sense. A lot of sponsors might be supporting you because they love the club and they are members of the club and they want to show support. That's fine. That sort of puts that sports sponsorship in almost charity. but what you can do is actually say. What do you want? How you are at your bakery, a local delicatessen or your grocery store or your petrol store. Are you a car dealership? Dive in a little bit on their business. Do they need to sell barbecues? Do they need to get people to their events. What do they need? Figure out if there is any way, any way at all. You can show them how you can do some of that because most likely if they are a baker or, or some of us running a delicatessen. Or car dealership, they're not doing a lot in the marketing space and acquiring of new customers and they don't have a big budget to do that. So they are coming to you as a grassroots club to show their support for the community and potentially get some customers. So they're your only two goals. You want to make sure the community knows that that sponsor is involved and they are supporting your club, so then they can tick off the warm fuzzies. But if on top of that you help them acquire customers and actually drive them business, then you don't have a problem strip everything else away. That's all you should be focused on. If digital helps with that, great. If relationships help with that, even better. So it is just about helping the sponsors get what they want. So that's where the, that's where the opportunity lies. So whether it's, Hey, we've got a season launch, we know our sponsors will be all looking at that season launch. How do we integrate our sponsors in what the season launch shoes across the event, across digital, across, what we're doing in the media space? How do we make sure they get their, they get their name and brand out there and show that there a support review. So you really do need to, marry it up, that it is part and parcel of sport. but if you just focused on that delivery of what they need, rather than, Hey, we've got to build out a really cool looking sponsorship deck and we've got to write a report to tell them how many times their logo appeared on a Facebook post. They don't really care about that. They care about selling more loaves of bread, more sausages from the butcher, and more cars. you know, I really, if you can focus on that, that is the, that is the main thing. And you know, they blunt, you know, in the know, you know, your pitch segment of Digital To Dollars is, I asked this the Spice Girl question, what do you want? What you really, really want. Ask that question to your sponsor, and once you know that, then go, cool, this is what we're going to try to do. To answer that question. Thanks Rishi for the question. Really good one.


Question three. I've got asked this, via Twitter when I announced them coming back. Why are you doing standup comedy? Thanks, Laura. You send that via Twitter. so if you don't know, April 1st, yes, it is April fool's day. I am making my return to stage in the Melbourne international comedy festival, SeanCallanan.com/comedy. If you want to come along and laugh at me, I mean, laugh with me. why am I doing it? I do it to, push myself and push myself in uncomfortable situations. I enjoy doing it. It's not easy to do stand up. and one of the things that when I did it a couple of years ago, when did the School of Hard Knock Knocks comedy standup comedy course? One thing I did think it, one benefit was I think it made me a better speaker. Previously, he's done an impro course. so improvisation where you learn to think on your feet. and a lot of my questions and a lot of my answers, a lot of my questions in my interviews and, and a lot of my work that I've done in moderating panels and even keynotes have leaned on that skill a lot. I can think of my feet and I can, I can come up with questions on the fly sometimes even during the question. if you haven't noticed, and, and to a certain degree, sort of use that as a bit of a crutch. whereas in standup comedy, you, it's really hard to freelance it. It's really hard to stand up there and got, cool. I'm going to tell you 10 minutes and make you laugh every 30 seconds. so stand up comedy is a real different beast and it's, and it's, it's a tough a beast, to master. I don't think I have. I don't think I ever will. but it's a skill, one that, works on preparing, writing and refining what I'm delivering. And so that's actually got me, practicing and refining my keynote speeches a lot more. And also refining a little. A little bit more interview and prepare for, for interviews for podcasts. so I think it's made me a better speaker. and I think it actually is also helped me as a speaker, cause I now know, I guess some of the mechanics and the behind the scenes of writing a joke and the setup of the joke and how to land a joke and the twists and turns of a joke. so some of the jokes that I have shared on keynotes on stages and that kind of stuff to get a laugh to, to, to improve the cadence of a . I'll have a speech. I've used some of those skills since then, so, and really, I really do a fun, it's such a rush. I'm really looking forward to April 1st, Melbourne International Comedy Festival. I'd love to see. Some of you there. for my international listeners, I will do my best to see if there's video or at least audio recording and may drop a audio or a special podcast just with that, just with that 10 minute set, it may need, James do a bit of work with bleeping because I might, might use a few swear words item. Oh, don't mind using swear words when I'm doing stand up. but that's, yeah, that's why I do stand up. life's too short to, to not challenge yourself and, not have fun. so thank you very much, Laura.

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