Advertise on podcast: Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast

Watch or listen to episode 333 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Borja Sordo, North American Sports Practice Lead, Accenture. Borja discusses why teams with some of the most elite analytics operations on the planet still run their front offices without the same rules of engagement, why turning a two-game fan into a four-game fan deserves champagne, whether watching Drive to Survive makes you an F1 fan, how to monetize fans who will never set foot in your stadium, why lifelong fans give teams a feedback loop most brands can only dream of, what the big leagues should learn from emerging leagues, why every experiment needs an ROI behind it, and more. 83 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube Try Skipper, the AI tool trained on 13+ years of knowledge shared on this podcast.

Watch and listen to episode 332 of the Digital and Social Media Sports podcast, a best of, featuring parts of conversations with: 3:51: Marc Jordan | Athletes Unlimited, Teamworks/INFLCR, Texas Longhorns, University of Tampa Athletics — Full Episode 22:38: Caleb Mezzy | Grit & Glue, Baseball and Brands (newsletter) The Athletic, PhD, Neumann University — Full Episode 48:22: Aileen McManamon | 5T Sports Group, Green Sports Alliance, Vancouver Canadians, Fiat, Alfa Romeo — Full Episode 1:05:28: Savanah Alaniz | Visit Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi Sports Commission, Savannah Bananas — Full Episode 1:25:08: Harrison McIntire | SPORTFIVE, Gilt Edge Soccer Marketing — Full Episode 1:48:45: Kyle Sheldon | NAME & NUMBER, Pathway (newsletter) Chicago Fire, Seattle Sounders, D.C. United, NASCAR— Full Episode Watch or Listen below or on Apple, Spotify and YouTube https://youtu.be/oxkoYVOuaaY 120 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify or YouTube. Posted by Neil Horowitz Follow me on Twitter @njh287   Connect on LinkedIn

Watch or listen to episode 331 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Phil Andrews, CEO, USA Fencing. Phil discusses why membership and not medals is the number he watches most closely, why participation comes before fandom in a sport built on doing rather than watching, why coming from outside the sport is a feature and not a bug, why awareness never converts without someone to walk a newcomer into a club, how the mask makes the most cinematic sport in the world also the most marketable, what Mandy Patinkin and a Creator Showdown deliver that $50 million in ads cannot, how USA Fencing earned the most CNN appearances in Paris, the business and operation of a sport’s national governing boy (NGB), and more. 99 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube Try Skipper, the AI tool trained on 13+ years of knowledge shared on this podcast.

Watch or listen to episode 330 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Bill Bailey, Chief Revenue Officer for Satisfi Labs. Bill discusses what changed for conversational AI in sports when ChatGPT arrived and why LLMs improved the product instead of killing it, the guardrail work that keeps a team’s agent on-brand, his build-versus-buy rule (build your own internal tools, buy anything that touches a fan), the personalization ladder from a QR code on the suite level to a logged-in season ticket holder and where it turns creepy, why the real danger is questions going unasked rather than unanswered, how live escalation hands a fan to the right rep mid-game, what it means that team web traffic is leaking to ChatGPT, and more.Try Skipper, the AI tool trained on 13+ years of knowledge shared on this podcast. 73 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

Watch or listen to episode 329 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Andrew Taylor, Senior Manager of Club Social Strategy for the NFL. Andrew has worked across a variety of sports: a pro baseball team in Adelaide, Australia, then MLB, the NBA, four years at Greenfly, and now the NFL. We get into why social touches everything and content distribution strategy, the helmets-off content that outperforms everything else across NFL clubs, how a fan actually gets built from a food video to a game, why follower count is a barometer and not a KPI, and what selling baseball to Australia taught him about the NFL’s push abroad. THE 13-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE PODCAST! 111 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

Watch or listen to episode 328 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Dave Benson, Founder & CEO, SuperQuickQuestion. Dave Benson has sat in a lot of seats: ESPN, Bleacher Report, MLB’s Fan Cave, and a marketing run at IBM, before founding SuperQuickQuestion, the one-on-one, one-minute video meet-and-greet platform. We get into why the meet-and-greet has barely changed since our dads’ day, the eye-opening reality that 60% of contracted athlete appearances never actually happen, how a hard one-minute clock makes athletes MORE willing to say yes, the death of the shill post, and why the smartest, most nascent leagues treat fans as assets instead of threats. Packed with stories, real numbers, and takeaways for anyone working in fan engagement. 73 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

Watch or listen to episode 327 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Joe Farren, Innovation Consultant, Future Sport Co. Joe Farren has sat in a lot of seats: six years at Hawk-Eye, leading the innovation unit at Manchester City, and now running his own consultancy, Future Sport Co. We get into the Man City Roblox playbook that drove 55 MILLION unique players (and 6,000 new members in four hours), why 3D player tracking data could one day rival media rights, and the fan behaviors that outlast every tech hype cycle. Loaded with case studies and real numbers. 106 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

Watch or listen to episode 326 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Ben Valenta, EVP of Strategy and Analytics at Fox Sports and co-author of Fans Have More Friends. Ben discusses how he came to see fandom as a “belonging engine,” and why the real definition of a fan is “passion plus action” (which his team measures through what they call a value score). He breaks down why it’s far easier to grow the fans you already have than to convert non-fans (the 0-to-1 problem), why fandom is horizontal rather than vertical so your next fan is already a fan of something else, and how youth fandom actually takes root through repetition and family bonding rituals. He also gets into the most underrated metrics in sports media, the wellness research at the heart of the book (the bigger the fan, the happier and more connected), the difference between strong-tie and weak-tie fandom online, and the Greg Armstrong story that reframes what a season ticket is really for. 75 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

Watch or listen to episode 325 of the Digital and Social Media Sports podcast, in which Neil chatted with Neil Tennant, Founder of 540 Agency, a creator talent management agency. Tennant discusses building the NHL’s creator marketing program from the ground up, the two pillars of a creator strategy (experiential activations and commissioned content), using “concentric circles” to build a creator wish list, how the league’s fan UGC program seeded it all, measuring “return on creator spend” and bringing data to a vibes-driven space, the first-of-its-kind 3-on-3 creator tournament he dreamed up around the 4 Nations Face-Off, why long-term relationships and creator equity are the next frontier, how he discovers and signs creators today, what he’s building at 540, and more. 80 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

Watch or listen to episode 324 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Andy Zeilman, President of WMT Digital, and Chris Freet, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer of WMT Digital. Andy and Chris discuss how WMT has built a technology-and-data-first company inside college sports, and why the real bottleneck for athletic departments isn’t a lack of data but the ability to act on it. They break down the move from fan ID to fan intelligence, the push to reclaim fans (along with their data and dollars) from social media and back into an owned-and-operated ecosystem, and how AI is powering a fan data flywheel that surfaces new segments and behaviors. They also get into fluid fandom and what it means for college loyalty, where pro sports can actually learn from the innovators in college, and their own distinct paths into the industry. 87 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

Watch or listen to episode 323 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil breaks down some of the key themes, insights, and notes from the 2026 Gondola Sports Summit 2026. WATCH OR LISTEN BELOW! 48 minute duration. Also, find the podcast on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

In a special edition of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil chatted with Sponcon Sports' Alex Kopilow about the recent NFL schedule release, discussing how teams in 2026. The ins and outs of schedule release, which ones stood out and why, the business considerations around schedule release content, and more.

Watch or listen to episode 321 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Elijah Burke, Head of Social at Dirty Mo Media, and previously social media management and strategy at Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing (RFK) and Chip Ganassi Racing. Elijah discusses what makes NASCAR social a unique corner of the sports space, including the driver vs. team brand dynamic, what makes content go viral on a race team account, sponsor activation, fan development in NASCAR, and more.

Watch or listen to episode 320 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Kevin Richardson, Vice President of Content, Clemson Ventures. Kevin discusses how Clemson Athletics is operating as a full-scale production house — building ownable IP, distributing original content across ESPN, Fox, Amazon Prime, and streaming platforms, and pushing the boundaries of what college athletics content can look like. Kevin breaks down the shift from fan affinity to content as a revenue driver, the vision for non-endemic storytelling that goes well beyond wins and losses, and how data is informing every content decision they make. He also shares his career path from Louisiana Tech and Rice to Texas and ultimately Clemson, the business case behind every piece of content Clemson Ventures produces, and why he believes college athletics hasn’t come close to scratching the surface of what’s possible. 87 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube

Watch or listen to episode 319 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, in which Neil chatted with Alex Magleby, Co-President of Major League Rugby. Alex discusses his journey from US national team rugby player and early sports analytics entrepreneur to co-founding the New England Free Jacks and now serving as Co-President of Strategy & Communications at Major League Rugby — and what it’s genuinely taken to build the sport in America from the ground up. He breaks down MLR’s entertainment-first model (live music, post-game field access, family of four for under $100), how the league thinks about fan development one block at a time, and why the 2031 Rugby World Cup is the north star for everything they’re building right now. 66 minute duration. Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTub