The 3rd Wave of Content
The 3rd Wave of Content
The 3rd Wave of Content
The 3rd Wave of Content
JJ Reddick and LeBron James just changed media
Last week, JJ Reddick and LeBron James launched their new basketball podcast, Mind the Game.
The first two episodes have a combined 5.1M views on YouTube.
During each episode, LeBron and JJ go into extreme detail about play design, coverages, and advanced basketball situations. They use terminology that players and coaches would commonly reference.
It’s amazing.
The show is a clear departure from “mainstream sports coverage” and will end up being the poster child for a major shift in media.
The shift is across:
Topic (broad → niche)
Coverage style (general → specific)
Hosts (talkers → doers)
Their show is a great example of what I call the 3rd era of internet content.
The 1st era was roughly from 2000 - 2010, which featured a huge mismatch between demand and supply for high quality content.
To be clear, there was probably 100x more demand than there was supply.
In this era, any consistent producer of content on the internet could gain huge mindshare, which is why we saw domination from networks (e.g., ESPN, MTV)
The 2nd era was roughly from 2010 - 2020.
During this time, many tools, playbooks, and platforms were developed to lower the friction barrier for content creation.
This is when social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram emerged as significant alternatives for content at scale.
Because of this, we saw “internet-first” content houses emerge…places like Buzzfeed and Barstool Sports.
This also played host to the rise of the individual creator and catalyzed what is now considered the creator economy.
During this phase, supply caught up to and eventually exceeded demand.
Towards the end of this era, content needed to compete for eyes.
Those making general purpose content for entire categories could still win, but they needed to have differentiation, either through distribution advantages, better talent/personalities, or access.
During this 2nd era, there was a clear separation between “those who did” (the business builder, the athlete, the artist) and “those who talked about those who did” (the media, the journalists, the sports anchors).
But in the last few years, we’ve entered Phase 3…where the tooling, algorithms, and playbooks have gotten so accessible that the practitioners (those who did) have now also become the media (those who talk about what they did).
This is where we’ve seen shows like New Heights (Kelce brother’s podcast), The Manning NFL Broadcast (with Eli and Payton), and now Mind the Game (with JJ and LeBron).
It turns out, the best way to get high quality, deep content within a category, is to have the players/builders/artists be the ones that host the shows.
I could listen to Stephen A Smith spew nonsense about the NBA or hear about it from LeBron directly.
There’s a time for both, but almost all of the content to this point has been positioned as the former.My prediction is that this is just the beginning for “doer-hosted” media.There will always be a place for talent commentators to provide entertainment-first perspective, but an entirely new category will emerge for value-rich stories from the doers themselves.
What’s the tactical so what?
Most of these doers don’t have the time or interest in learning the entire content production/business stack, so there’s a huge opportunity to provide the infrastructure and know-how for them.
Sure, LeBron and JJ already have an in-house production team dialed, but there is a long-tail of athletes/artists that want to be a part of this wave and don’t have the resources.
Find them and supply it.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
If you enjoyed this post and want more like it, you should subscribe to me weekly creator journal, Blueprint. Each week, I share metrics, ideas, frameworks, and experiments designed to supercharge your thinking about content & brand building in the modern age.
JJ Reddick and LeBron James just changed media
Last week, JJ Reddick and LeBron James launched their new basketball podcast, Mind the Game.
The first two episodes have a combined 5.1M views on YouTube.
During each episode, LeBron and JJ go into extreme detail about play design, coverages, and advanced basketball situations. They use terminology that players and coaches would commonly reference.
It’s amazing.
The show is a clear departure from “mainstream sports coverage” and will end up being the poster child for a major shift in media.
The shift is across:
Topic (broad → niche)
Coverage style (general → specific)
Hosts (talkers → doers)
Their show is a great example of what I call the 3rd era of internet content.
The 1st era was roughly from 2000 - 2010, which featured a huge mismatch between demand and supply for high quality content.
To be clear, there was probably 100x more demand than there was supply.
In this era, any consistent producer of content on the internet could gain huge mindshare, which is why we saw domination from networks (e.g., ESPN, MTV)
The 2nd era was roughly from 2010 - 2020.
During this time, many tools, playbooks, and platforms were developed to lower the friction barrier for content creation.
This is when social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram emerged as significant alternatives for content at scale.
Because of this, we saw “internet-first” content houses emerge…places like Buzzfeed and Barstool Sports.
This also played host to the rise of the individual creator and catalyzed what is now considered the creator economy.
During this phase, supply caught up to and eventually exceeded demand.
Towards the end of this era, content needed to compete for eyes.
Those making general purpose content for entire categories could still win, but they needed to have differentiation, either through distribution advantages, better talent/personalities, or access.
During this 2nd era, there was a clear separation between “those who did” (the business builder, the athlete, the artist) and “those who talked about those who did” (the media, the journalists, the sports anchors).
But in the last few years, we’ve entered Phase 3…where the tooling, algorithms, and playbooks have gotten so accessible that the practitioners (those who did) have now also become the media (those who talk about what they did).
This is where we’ve seen shows like New Heights (Kelce brother’s podcast), The Manning NFL Broadcast (with Eli and Payton), and now Mind the Game (with JJ and LeBron).
It turns out, the best way to get high quality, deep content within a category, is to have the players/builders/artists be the ones that host the shows.
I could listen to Stephen A Smith spew nonsense about the NBA or hear about it from LeBron directly.
There’s a time for both, but almost all of the content to this point has been positioned as the former.My prediction is that this is just the beginning for “doer-hosted” media.There will always be a place for talent commentators to provide entertainment-first perspective, but an entirely new category will emerge for value-rich stories from the doers themselves.
What’s the tactical so what?
Most of these doers don’t have the time or interest in learning the entire content production/business stack, so there’s a huge opportunity to provide the infrastructure and know-how for them.
Sure, LeBron and JJ already have an in-house production team dialed, but there is a long-tail of athletes/artists that want to be a part of this wave and don’t have the resources.
Find them and supply it.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
If you enjoyed this post and want more like it, you should subscribe to me weekly creator journal, Blueprint. Each week, I share metrics, ideas, frameworks, and experiments designed to supercharge your thinking about content & brand building in the modern age.
JJ Reddick and LeBron James just changed media
Last week, JJ Reddick and LeBron James launched their new basketball podcast, Mind the Game.
The first two episodes have a combined 5.1M views on YouTube.
During each episode, LeBron and JJ go into extreme detail about play design, coverages, and advanced basketball situations. They use terminology that players and coaches would commonly reference.
It’s amazing.
The show is a clear departure from “mainstream sports coverage” and will end up being the poster child for a major shift in media.
The shift is across:
Topic (broad → niche)
Coverage style (general → specific)
Hosts (talkers → doers)
Their show is a great example of what I call the 3rd era of internet content.
The 1st era was roughly from 2000 - 2010, which featured a huge mismatch between demand and supply for high quality content.
To be clear, there was probably 100x more demand than there was supply.
In this era, any consistent producer of content on the internet could gain huge mindshare, which is why we saw domination from networks (e.g., ESPN, MTV)
The 2nd era was roughly from 2010 - 2020.
During this time, many tools, playbooks, and platforms were developed to lower the friction barrier for content creation.
This is when social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram emerged as significant alternatives for content at scale.
Because of this, we saw “internet-first” content houses emerge…places like Buzzfeed and Barstool Sports.
This also played host to the rise of the individual creator and catalyzed what is now considered the creator economy.
During this phase, supply caught up to and eventually exceeded demand.
Towards the end of this era, content needed to compete for eyes.
Those making general purpose content for entire categories could still win, but they needed to have differentiation, either through distribution advantages, better talent/personalities, or access.
During this 2nd era, there was a clear separation between “those who did” (the business builder, the athlete, the artist) and “those who talked about those who did” (the media, the journalists, the sports anchors).
But in the last few years, we’ve entered Phase 3…where the tooling, algorithms, and playbooks have gotten so accessible that the practitioners (those who did) have now also become the media (those who talk about what they did).
This is where we’ve seen shows like New Heights (Kelce brother’s podcast), The Manning NFL Broadcast (with Eli and Payton), and now Mind the Game (with JJ and LeBron).
It turns out, the best way to get high quality, deep content within a category, is to have the players/builders/artists be the ones that host the shows.
I could listen to Stephen A Smith spew nonsense about the NBA or hear about it from LeBron directly.
There’s a time for both, but almost all of the content to this point has been positioned as the former.My prediction is that this is just the beginning for “doer-hosted” media.There will always be a place for talent commentators to provide entertainment-first perspective, but an entirely new category will emerge for value-rich stories from the doers themselves.
What’s the tactical so what?
Most of these doers don’t have the time or interest in learning the entire content production/business stack, so there’s a huge opportunity to provide the infrastructure and know-how for them.
Sure, LeBron and JJ already have an in-house production team dialed, but there is a long-tail of athletes/artists that want to be a part of this wave and don’t have the resources.
Find them and supply it.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
If you enjoyed this post and want more like it, you should subscribe to me weekly creator journal, Blueprint. Each week, I share metrics, ideas, frameworks, and experiments designed to supercharge your thinking about content & brand building in the modern age.
JJ Reddick and LeBron James just changed media
Last week, JJ Reddick and LeBron James launched their new basketball podcast, Mind the Game.
The first two episodes have a combined 5.1M views on YouTube.
During each episode, LeBron and JJ go into extreme detail about play design, coverages, and advanced basketball situations. They use terminology that players and coaches would commonly reference.
It’s amazing.
The show is a clear departure from “mainstream sports coverage” and will end up being the poster child for a major shift in media.
The shift is across:
Topic (broad → niche)
Coverage style (general → specific)
Hosts (talkers → doers)
Their show is a great example of what I call the 3rd era of internet content.
The 1st era was roughly from 2000 - 2010, which featured a huge mismatch between demand and supply for high quality content.
To be clear, there was probably 100x more demand than there was supply.
In this era, any consistent producer of content on the internet could gain huge mindshare, which is why we saw domination from networks (e.g., ESPN, MTV)
The 2nd era was roughly from 2010 - 2020.
During this time, many tools, playbooks, and platforms were developed to lower the friction barrier for content creation.
This is when social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram emerged as significant alternatives for content at scale.
Because of this, we saw “internet-first” content houses emerge…places like Buzzfeed and Barstool Sports.
This also played host to the rise of the individual creator and catalyzed what is now considered the creator economy.
During this phase, supply caught up to and eventually exceeded demand.
Towards the end of this era, content needed to compete for eyes.
Those making general purpose content for entire categories could still win, but they needed to have differentiation, either through distribution advantages, better talent/personalities, or access.
During this 2nd era, there was a clear separation between “those who did” (the business builder, the athlete, the artist) and “those who talked about those who did” (the media, the journalists, the sports anchors).
But in the last few years, we’ve entered Phase 3…where the tooling, algorithms, and playbooks have gotten so accessible that the practitioners (those who did) have now also become the media (those who talk about what they did).
This is where we’ve seen shows like New Heights (Kelce brother’s podcast), The Manning NFL Broadcast (with Eli and Payton), and now Mind the Game (with JJ and LeBron).
It turns out, the best way to get high quality, deep content within a category, is to have the players/builders/artists be the ones that host the shows.
I could listen to Stephen A Smith spew nonsense about the NBA or hear about it from LeBron directly.
There’s a time for both, but almost all of the content to this point has been positioned as the former.My prediction is that this is just the beginning for “doer-hosted” media.There will always be a place for talent commentators to provide entertainment-first perspective, but an entirely new category will emerge for value-rich stories from the doers themselves.
What’s the tactical so what?
Most of these doers don’t have the time or interest in learning the entire content production/business stack, so there’s a huge opportunity to provide the infrastructure and know-how for them.
Sure, LeBron and JJ already have an in-house production team dialed, but there is a long-tail of athletes/artists that want to be a part of this wave and don’t have the resources.
Find them and supply it.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
If you enjoyed this post and want more like it, you should subscribe to me weekly creator journal, Blueprint. Each week, I share metrics, ideas, frameworks, and experiments designed to supercharge your thinking about content & brand building in the modern age.