Frazer Rice and Bram Weinstein, the “Voice of the Washington Commanders,” discuss the shift in sports media for entrepreneurs. The current state of sports journalism is in flux, especially with the decline of the Washington Post’s sports section and its implications for local coverage. We explore the opportunities that come from this void. (Including the potential for new media ventures and the challenges of monetizing content in a fractured media landscape). The discussion also touches on the future of the Washington Commanders, the importance of audience engagement, and the evolving nature of podcasting and digital media.
Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com)
Takeaways
- The Washington Post’s sports section closure is seen as a significant loss.
- There is a growing opportunity for new media companies to fill the coverage void.
- Monetizing media ventures requires innovative strategies and diverse revenue streams.
- Podcasters face challenges in gaining audience traction and monetization.
- The Commanders’ future depends on effective roster changes and health improvements.
- Engagement with the audience is crucial for media success.
- Digital platforms like YouTube provide exposure but limited revenue.
- The media landscape is rapidly changing, requiring adaptability.
- Local sports coverage is essential for community engagement.
- The importance of maintaining journalistic integrity in a changing media environment.
SPORTS MEDIA FOR ENTREPRENEURS CHAPTERS
00:00 The State of Sports Journalism
02:59 Opportunities in Media
06:07 Monetizing Media Ventures
09:05 Navigating Podcasting Challenges
11:59 The Future of the Commanders
15:06 Engaging with the Audience
DISCOVERING BRAM, THE COMMANDERS, AND AMPIRE MEDIA
Transcript of “SPORTS MEDIA FOR ENTREPRENEURS”
Frazer Rice (00:00.686)
Welcome aboard, Bram.
Bram N Weinstein (00:02.551)
Hey, Frazer, how are you?
Frazer Rice (00:03.736)
Doing great. The last time we spoke it was about three days before the Chicago Hail Mary, so I’m viewing that as good luck. That must have been something having to call that game.
Bram N Weinstein (00:14.071)
That was part of the most magical season I’ve ever been a part of. Not only first ever for the franchise, but 12 and five, NFC championship game, hadn’t done that in a generation. It was pretty incredible, yeah.
Frazer Rice (00:28.652)
No, as a skins fan, now commander’s fan, it’s been a long time, but it was a wild ride. One of the things that’s happened recently, which I know strikes near and dear to your heart, and frankly, for people who grew up sort of following it, has been, I guess, kind of the evisceration of the Washington Post sports section. And it’s got all sorts of impacts.
But from your perspective, How do you make sense of that and what does it look like going forward for a city essentially that has all the major sports and the major paper not really covering it?
Bram N Weinstein (01:09.719)
I don’t make sense of it. I don’t understand it. I think at its core, The Washington Post is two things. It’s one of the most important publications in the world as the paper of record in the most powerful city in the world and the democratic center of the world. But it also is a local newspaper for one of the top 10 markets, top five markets in the country.
And the idea that it would not cover its sports teams, or Metro desk, which, I know, you know, for our purposes, we focused a lot on the sports desk being shuttered. The Metro desk is too. So the Washington Post not covering the mayor’s office, city council meetings like in especially in these political times where, you know, the district budget is held by the federal government.
To me, it doesn’t even it doesn’t compute that that wouldn’t exist. as far as like the sports section goes, which I think is like the lesser of the two real problems with this, but obviously is a real problem is, you I think for me, it feels like a death. I grew up reading the Washington Post. A lot of the reasons why I wanted to do what I wanted to do was through osmosis of reading Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon and Tom Boswell and all of the great writers that came through the Washington Post.
And I just don’t really understand how it’s not within the business model to be part of this. At the same time, you know, it does open opportunities for entrepreneurs like myself who have media companies and are always looking for new talent and always looking for openings. And I can tell you that void is going to get filled.
But I do think it is sad that the Washington Post could not figure out a way to modernize itself to allow its coverage to continue for its loyal readership. This is a local paper that isn’t covering local news. That is astoundingly terrible in terms of a business practice to me.
Frazer Rice (03:14.317)
It’s weird because from my perch here in New York, I work across the street from the New York Times building and there’s a little bit of sort of guffawing that the New York Times has turned into a gaming company and sort of a media company second, which has helped to subsidize its continued commitment to long form journalism. But even then, I mean, it’s really focusing on arts and leisure and cookbooks and wordel and all sorts of things like that.
And it’s a shame that the Washington Post either couldn’t pivot in that direction or otherwise make sense of things.
Bram N Weinstein (03:48.727)
Is the business model of media the same that was no. so there are a few things that play here to be fair. I’m not asking Jeff Bezos to lose money. You know, like, or just be the beneficiary to subsidize something, but you do bring up a point, which is.
And I read this quote recently from, the old ownership group, the Graham family, who basically said. “You know, the newspaper is a grocery store. Like you are supposed to go in there and pick all the different things that you want. And hopefully there’s something for everybody or hopefully a number of things for everybody. And in modern times, the New York Times has done a very good job of putting together a new modern grocery store for people. So there’s a variety of different things that does subsidize the important work that it does. And in the end, like to me, the New York Times and the Washington Post and maybe the Wall Street Journal.
Are the three most important newspaper entities, if you can call them that, in the United States of America. And for one of them to not understand their role in protecting democracy, in covering our world, in informing the readership, whether it’s locally or nationally, to me is an absconding responsibility. So I don’t know what the answer is.
Again, I’m not like demanding Jeff Bezos just…money to keep things subsidized. Like it is a business and I understand that, but there must have been better ways to go about it or maybe, you know, sell it to someone who does have ideas because it’s important for its foundations to remain intact. And so I just, you know, for me, it’s, been hard to digest, honestly. And like to your original question of like, like, how do you make sense of it? I really don’t. I don’t make any sense of it.
Frazer Rice (05:39.692)
Well, you also now have a fledgling media company and I’m a devourer of yours and Kim’s and Standix podcasts and I learned something from it each time. I see an opportunity there if major component of the media establishment in the area is abdicating its role, not only to the major sports that aren’t getting covered as much.
There’s an opportunity there. But even like the local hotbed sports like lacrosse, they’re completely ignored, I would imagine. And that might be a way to sort of get some grassroots component going.
Bram N Weinstein (06:17.195)
Yeah, we also here with my company Empire see the opportunity, unfortunately, but we do. And there’s a lot of talent that is available. There is a void in coverage. We know, you know, the size of our community, the appetite for sports. And so, you know, I don’t want to say too much, but we are actively seeking partners to expand in a pretty large way if possible. So
Frazer Rice (06:24.045)
Right.
Bram N Weinstein (06:46.067)
We’re working towards that and I’ve been working towards that and moving very fast in the hopes that we’re not the only ones thinking this like you. There’s a lot of people thinking there’s an opportunity here. I wish it wasn’t the opportunity that it is, but it has presented itself and it’s an opportunity that we intend to see through. So we are actively speaking to a number of different interested parties about funding a major expansion of what we’re doing.
Frazer Rice (07:11.379)
Really cool. Well, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on that as it develops. When you’re thinking about sort of the money making aspect of it, we don’t do things for free and it’d be lovely if we all had time and disposable income to do that without giving away the playbook because you’re raising money and you don’t want to give that up necessarily. But how do you think about that in terms of delivering value for sponsors or advertisers or the general audience? Have you made any…sort of commitment strategy-wise there.
Bram N Weinstein (07:42.197)
Yes, digital audio video forward. You know, I also believe in enterprise journalism. I also very much believe in long form journalism, but the audience appetite for it is limited. And so you do have to subsidize it. And that comes in the form of a number of different properties repurposed for different platforms in various ways, podcasts, video shows, YouTube.
All offer opportunities to monetize the same content. I have been studying very closely the things the New York Times has done and thought about what kind of engagement tools would be necessary to be an added perk for those who would end up probably subscribing to a situation like this. So there are a lot of different types of financial models.
One is subscriptions. in a variety of different ways, whether it’s premium content, newsletters, one of them is obviously advertising, which would come with YouTube or different streaming channel, streaming network, podcasts, obviously, sponsorship, which could go across the board for all of the different categories. And, lastly, live events. And this is something that we are very capable of doing as well.
So there are a tremendous amount of different models to make money. None of them are easy. And because the audiences are so fractured, I think you have to find ways to make financial streams in the same content in various different forms. But we’re willing to do that. And we’ve already kind of done that with what I’ve done with Empire on a very limited role, which is why we think we’re ready to make this expansion and move.
But we need an investor to buy in and to the investors, I would say to them, we intend to make you money and we intend to be something that could be purchased in a three to five to 10 year plan. So we understand the importance of making sure that the investment is paid off in the end as well.
Frazer Rice (09:52.205)
Cool. Are you thinking about expanding into other subject matter areas? you’re in DC, so politics, guess, would be a natural fit. Right.
Bram N Weinstein (09:59.965)
Not really. And I wouldn’t personally, like, I just don’t feel like that’s my expertise. So no, but like, could we be something like the ringer where you’re looking into culture, you’re looking into arts, music, dining, those types of things? Yeah, I think like that’s something I’m not sure that I would move fast into a realm like that. Like we see the void in sports coverage for this marketplace. We would like to fill that void.
And whatever we do after that would be dabbling in those spaces to try to, again, find new ways to find new audiences. But we want to go with our core products first. And certainly for me personally, the politics world is completely above my pay grade. So I’m out of that. Yeah.
Frazer Rice (10:46.028)
It’s above everybody’s I think if anybody could figure it out It’s it’s one of those Rubik’s cubes that it’s not worth solving oftentimes So, you know one of the things I don’t know if I’d struggle with or I’m Would like to expand on my front is just getting my podcast out to more people and the concept of discover ability and one of the strengths that I think you have Is you know your current position in traditional media with the commanders?
Keim has it a little bit with ESPN, Ben Stendig has it with his Substack, which isn’t traditional media, but there’s different outflows on that front. How do you view that competitive advantage in terms of getting the message out and almost having a bit of a head start over some of the other possibilities out there?
Bram N Weinstein (11:30.175)
Yeah, well, I think there was always like, you know, for the podcast world. Yes, anybody can do a show and you know, they could be good. The reality is, though, you know, the people who already have stakes in the marketplace, at least from name value, are always going to have a head start. It’s going to come down to how you market yourself and how you go about getting your show out there as much as possible.
The reality is you need some level of a robust social presence to get to as many eyeballs or ears as possible. And if you don’t, then you typically have to kind of go down a paid route of making sure that it gets into algorithms. And so it’s a hard climb, like for sure. You know, like when podcasts and kind of open the gates for everybody, same thing with YouTube, like
Frazer Rice (12:14.54)
Mm.
Bram N Weinstein (12:23.444)
You know, there’s going to be a lot of success stories. There’s going to be a lot more people who are either doing it for love of the game, but not for money. And that’s just the reality of how much time any person has to give up to content. And secondarily, who can get to enough of an audience to make it worthwhile? As you probably know, you need thousands of downloads to really make any kind of real money at all on a podcast episode.
Getting to thousands of downloads. doesn’t sound like a big, like if I said, you have to get to a thousand, like a thousand doesn’t sound like a lot for one episode, but it’s way harder to do. wager a guess that 90 % of podcasts do not reach 1000 downloads per episode. So it’s a very hard number to reach. And if you really want to make money, money on it, we’re talking about getting 10,000 an episode.
Sure, anybody like myself that has various different platforms I can use to promote my own shows has a head start in that manner. And that would always have been for anybody in traditional media who had a following to start with, if they were willing to jump into the digital side quickly, they were always going to have a head start because they already had an audience that was built in. It was just converting them.
Frazer Rice (13:39.572)
You know, and for me, the conversion isn’t so much, you know, buying pillows or mattresses from the advertising that comes on the show. I don’t have any advertisers. The ROI for me is, in a client, one client, maybe listening to it and then calling up. And all of a sudden that pays for everything, in sort of my day job.
Bram N Weinstein (13:52.992)
Yes.
Bram N Weinstein (13:57.813)
Yeah, well, I think you’re actually looking at it the right way. Like, could your show end up having a big audience? Yeah, of course it could. But like, the reality is for most people who are doing podcasts for the other purpose, which is either marketing, client curation, branding, like those have extraordinary value to like my company’s done a lot of B2B type podcasts. And I explained this, you know, to them, and most of the people I work with aren’t looking, they don’t think they’re going to be Pat McAfee. But like, they understand that like,
The value in doing this well is going to get paid back exponentially in client curation, marketing, entering new market spaces, expanding business opportunity, because it done well, it can really have that kind of benefit for you.
Frazer Rice (14:43.563)
How do you make sense of all the different platforms that are out there? You know, I converted to video because ignoring YouTube meant basically ignoring Google and I was like, well, that’s dumb. I know, Spotify’s out there. iTunes has just converted to video.
And then you’ve got all the different podcasts, platforms, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How do you, it just seems like it changes weekly in many ways as to what’s in favor, what’s not. When you’re making a bet on your company, how do you deal with that?
Bram N Weinstein (15:06.996)
Yeah. Yeah, think. Yeah, it’s hard. Things have changed a lot. Like, for the most part, we double up our podcasts now and they’re taped on video. So they’re disseminated with not a tremendous amount of production value behind them. And of course, you know, used as audio podcasts as well. So it’s a two in one situation.
And we find that YouTube. The advertising dollars there are very small, but the exposure, not unlike when we were talking about kind of marketing yourself, the exposure of being there, if you can get thousands of views, often offers up a lot of different opportunities. Sponsors prefer to be visually seen than just audibly heard. So like in both of those cases, they can be beneficial. like we don’t frankly make a lot of like we have on YouTube.
We only have two primary shows with Empire Media that are on YouTube on our channel. We have about 18,000 subscribers now and we get on an average month like 127,000 views between just the two shows, which is a lot, know, especially for like a niche thing where we’re really just talking about one thing, the commander. So we’re like, we’re not expanding out much more than that. So it’s a very niche thing and yet we’re getting a really, really sizable number.
Frazer Rice (16:11.787)
That’s good.
Bram N Weinstein (16:25.15)
If I told you how much money we get paid for that, you’d laugh like it’s it’s pennies on the dollar. But the exposure of having it and the amount of views and impressions that it generates gets us sponsorship opportunities because people want to be part of that. And that’s where the real opportunity comes with YouTube. As far as like using Facebook Live, IG, like TikTok, I suppose. Like. I don’t know, like I don’t think you can be everywhere.
I think the idea is to try to be, I think you’re talking to different audiences on each of these things. So I don’t think it’s one size fits all. And it has to be worth it. For me, it has to be worthwhile. Like, is there a reason why we’re there other than we’re just trying to get people but if there’s no benefit of a carryover beyond it and it just happens to hit their feed, but we’re not getting any sponsorship money out of it or any activation out of it? Well, then what was the point?
So I’m always looking for right places to be. But there has to be an incentive structure that makes sense, either true carryover audience growth or obvious sponsorship opportunity.
Frazer Rice (17:32.076)
The cost of coordination of all of that too starts to overwhelm. I know you’ve got a schedule to keep here. I would be silly not to ask about my commanders a little bit. Two new assistant coaches, offensive and defensive coordinator, lots of changes coming in terms of personnel and hopefully sort of a rethink of Jaden and hopefully a lot better health going into next year. But…
Bram N Weinstein (17:36.17)
Yes. Yeah.
Frazer Rice (17:59.84)
Potentially better division in many ways, how do you see things going forward?
Bram N Weinstein (18:04.71)
I don’t know what their team looks like yet. So this is like a hard question to answer because I think they’re going to be very aggressive in free agency and then obviously they have the seventh overall pick. I kind of need to see what their roster looks like before knowing. I you know, David Blough been here the last couple of years. He is one of these very young, very impressive people. I’m glad they kept him in the building. It’s a big ask to jump from where he was to go to offensive
He at least is talking a big game like he’s ready for this and I hope he is, you know, like we’ll have to see. I think a lot of it will have to do with the quarterback stays healthy and that just didn’t happen a year ago and the whole team didn’t stay healthy. So they fell apart and you know, like I don’t think health was the only reason they had the record they had, but I think the health made it worse than it could have been like their record probably would have been a little more respectable if the health wasn’t as bad as it was.
Hopefully Jayden stays healthy. He’s fine now. So hopefully he stays healthy and on defense Deonte Jones. This is his first opportunity doing this but he’s actually been in the league for 20 years and he’s worked with every almost every major defensive coordinator up until this point So he feels like someone that’s been overdue for an opportunity. I like the system He’s coming out of does he have the personnel to win with I don’t think right now and that’s why I’m like Let me see what they do in free agency. How much money do they spend at what positions?
How are they looking to upgrade that side of the ball? And if they bring in what I think will be two, three, four new starters, whether it’s via the draft and free agency combined, then I think we could have a different conversation about what I think it’s gonna look like, because I kinda need to see what the roster looks like first.
Frazer Rice (19:44.691)
No, there’s so many holes in the free agency component.
Not to pin you down on a record going into next year, because we don’t even know what the components are going to be. To that end, as you said, the injuries were a real problem. Everything that possibly could go right in 2024 didn’t in 2025. How does that work over the course of time in terms of regression to the mean? Is just every season completely different or is there something that carries over?
Bram N Weinstein (20:19.542)
So 2023 was nothing like 2024, which was nothing like 2025. So we’ve had a roller coaster for sure. Um I last year was a surprise like. If you had told me the beginning of the season look like the schedules too hard. They had too many injuries. They went 9889 didn’t make the playoffs. I would have believed you. You know, like it’s just things were just harder to try to replicate. I didn’t expect what ended up.
So can they flip that back around and be more competitive again? I do believe so. I also agree with something you said, which was. Right now and again don’t know what the teams look like exactly yet, but I do think the division on the whole will be better. The Giants will be better coached for sure. They have a lot of defensive talent and we’ll see if Jaxson Dart takes another step. And if that’s the case, the Giants may be more formidable than they’ve been in 10 years. The Eagles are still going to have a very, good roster. No matter
Frazer Rice (21:04.938)
Mm-hmm.
Bram N Weinstein (21:16.106)
Whatever they do this off season, even if it includes moving off of a couple of primary people, they still have an extremely strong high level roster. And I like how the Cowboys pivoted from Micah Parsons. I know it hurt them last year, but I do like what they did in the return that they got since. So they play their cards right. They could be in line to really make a jump back this year. Like they’re the ones that feel kind of ready to me.
If they play their cards right and if they don’t end up, which is the second part, which is never they avoid, they never avoid this. They turn themselves into a circus. So if they could ever stop turning themselves into a circus, I think it would serve them. You know, I think it would be a very positive outcome for them, but their owner doesn’t live in that world. He likes to be a ringmaster. And, you know, I think that that’s probably more than anything been the hindrance to them winning a Super Bowl over the last.
Frazer Rice (21:55.004)
You
Bram N Weinstein (22:14.422)
30 years, they’ve had good enough teams to do it. They just don’t and I think they get in their own way. But you know, maybe this year’s a little different for them.
Frazer Rice (22:21.364)
No question.
Alright, how do people find Ampire and sample all the different media that you’re putting out there?
Bram N Weinstein (22:31.766)
YouTube is Empire Media AMPIRE. We have our YouTube page. You can find that there. My show is under my name, Bram Weisside Show. John Keim Report covers the commanders and Last Man Standing is Ben Standing’s show. And who knows, maybe in four to six months, we’ve got some new offerings. I’m hoping that’s gonna be the case pretty soon.
Frazer Rice (22:51.466)
Terrific. Thanks for coming on, Bram, and rootin’ for your success.
Bram N Weinstein (22:55.414)
Thanks a lot. Take care
BRAM on “WEALTH ACTUALLY” three days before the JAYDEN HAIL MARY
Keywords:
sports journalism, Washington Post, media opportunities, podcasting, Commanders, monetization, audience engagement, digital media, sports coverage, media landscape
Titles
- The Decline of Sports Journalism
- Seizing Media Opportunities