Josh Pate Shares the New Blueprint for Media Success

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Josh Pate Shares the New Blueprint for Media Success"

Right About Now with Ryan Alford
Episode Title: Josh Pate Shares the New Blueprint for Media Success
Release Date: November 26, 2024
Host: Ryan Alford
Guest: Josh Pate, Host of the Josh Pate Show and CBS Analyst for College Football
Network: Radcast Network

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of Right About Now with Ryan Alford, Ryan sits down with Josh Pate, a prominent figure in the realm of college football media. Josh shares his journey, insights, and strategies that have propelled his media presence to new heights. The conversation delves deep into the evolution of new media, the importance of authentic audience engagement, effective monetization techniques, and the future landscape of college football broadcasting.

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Josh Pate's Journey in Media

Early Career and Breakthrough

Josh Pate's foray into media began unexpectedly. Coming from a non-media background, Josh recounts his serendipitous entry into radio:

"[...] the only way to make 8am Become 5pm Is your lunch break and then what you listening to. And so I'm just listening to sports talk all day and I remember my buddies would get just pissed off because everyone wasn't praising Georgia or praising Auburn. And I'd listen to it and I may not like what a guy said, but I would appreciate the information."
— Josh Pate [04:11]

His dedication led him to approach a radio program director, resulting in an impromptu on-air opportunity that kickstarted his broadcasting career. This unplanned entry exemplifies the unpredictable nature of media careers but underscores Josh's passion and adaptability.

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The Rise of New Media and Its Impact

Evolution from Traditional to Digital Platforms

Josh emphasizes the transformative power of new media, particularly platforms like YouTube and Facebook Live:

"[...] YouTube shortly thereafter introduces live capability on their platform. So to me, I've been sitting here thinking the whole time, the whole key to this game, as you know, is overhead and distribution."
— Josh Pate [06:02]

He discusses how the democratization of content distribution has leveled the playing field, allowing individuals to reach nationwide audiences without the need for traditional syndication deals or large studios.

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Monetization Strategies and Direct Sponsorships

Building Authentic Partnerships

A significant portion of the discussion centers around Josh's approach to monetizing his content through direct sponsorships rather than relying solely on ad agencies. He recounts his first major sponsorship deal with Pepsi's distributor, Buffalo Rock:

"But that was my first interaction with ad sales for the show. Well, what the lesson it taught me was I didn't have a third party go out and do that for me and I didn't have an agency bring him to me. That was a direct face to face partnership and I swear to you, that was one of the biggest blessings that ever happened."
— Josh Pate [15:15]

This direct approach has allowed him to forge strong, personalized relationships with sponsors like Academy Sports, FanDuel Sports, Quick Trip, and Xevia. Josh highlights the benefits of such partnerships:

"They just baked it into their ad spend, quick trip, comes on board. I tell them gas prices are insane right now. [...] we are not going to have many partners. But number three, it's going to make sense and I'm going to make sure I get something for you out of any partnership we have."
— Josh Pate [27:58]

Key Takeaways:

• Direct Engagement: Building relationships directly with sponsors fosters trust and ensures alignment in brand values.
• Selective Partnerships: Partnering with brands that resonate with the audience enhances authenticity and engagement.
• Value Addition: Offering tangible benefits, like giveaways, increases sponsor value beyond traditional ad reads.

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Building Authentic Audience Relationships

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Josh underscores the importance of prioritizing the audience over self-promotion. He warns against common mistakes such as becoming overly self-centered or diluting content to appeal to a broader audience:

"I am a total product of our audience and I am a total product of what they've allowed me to do. [...] People getting ignorant or self-absorbed enough to where they believe they're the big deal and therefore they're going to stack their show or they're going to produce their content around what they care about and the audience will just consume it because they're a bunch of clapping seals."
— Josh Pate [19:48]

Strategies for Authentic Engagement:

• Listen and Adapt: Continuously gather and act on audience feedback to tailor content that meets their needs.
• Maintain Integrity: Stay true to the core content focus, resisting the urge to over-expand into unrelated areas.
• Foster Loyalty: Create content that not only entertains but also adds value, ensuring repeat engagement.

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The Importance of Niche Focus in Media

Thriving in Specialized Content

Josh passionately advocates for focusing on a niche to build a dedicated and engaged audience. He contrasts his approach with that of generalists in sports media:

"I'm good in college football. [...] If you try to apply that model to the NFL, it's so inauthentic and disingenuous and it would take, it would be so pennywise pound foolish to try and merge what we're doing here into other lanes."
— Josh Pate [23:13]

He argues that specialization allows for deeper engagement and a more profound connection with the audience, which broad-spectrum coverage often fails to achieve.

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Challenges in College Football Media and Comparisons with NFL

Depth vs. Breadth in Coverage

Josh highlights the gaps in college football broadcasting compared to the NFL, pointing out areas where current media coverage falls short:

"Where's the person to add the context of, you know, these LSU folks, they're really disgruntled and they're unhappy. [...] where is the person who tells you, you know, when Brian Kelly got to LSU in his first year, what people don't realize is he removed a lot of the Louisiana flavor from the program."
— Josh Pate [37:13]

He suggests that college football broadcasts could benefit from integrating more in-depth analysis and context, similar to the comprehensive coverage seen in NFL broadcasts.

Proposed Enhancements:

• Recruiting Insights: Incorporate detailed coverage of recruiting to provide a more holistic view of team dynamics.
• Cultural Context: Offer deeper insights into team cultures, coaching philosophies, and player motivations to enrich the viewing experience.

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Future Outlook for College Football and New Media

Anticipating Industry Shifts

Josh outlines his vision for the future of college football media, anticipating significant changes driven by new media dynamics:

"I think by the time this documentary concludes, we will have got to a place where revenue sharing is fully incorporated into college football. [...] self governance overtakes NCAA governance."
— Josh Pate [43:28]

He foresees a restructuring where conferences take on more autonomous roles in governance and revenue distribution, leading to greater stability and competitive balance.

Key Predictions:

• Revenue Sharing: Enhanced mechanisms to distribute revenue more equitably among conferences and schools.
• Self-Governance: Increased autonomy for individual conferences to manage their affairs without overarching NCAA interference.
• Cultural Shifts: Potential retirements or career changes among coaching staff as the landscape evolves.

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Notable Quotes

• Josh Pate on Branding:
  "You've got to be the brand. But then when you say that, you got to understand what you mean when you say that. A lot of people say that and it's just the most douchebag, like, conceited thing imaginable and like bragging about yourself as you're the brand. That is not the case at all."
  — Josh Pate [00:37]

• Ryan Alford on Authentic Partnerships:
  "I can't stress enough for anybody hearing that that the most lucrative deals are the most personal deals and the most like you."
  — Ryan Alford [19:48]

• Josh Pate on Audience-Centric Content:
  "If you triple Venn diagram that, what you need to be focused on identifying is where is the overlap of me and the audience where the other guy doesn't overlap. In other words, what is not being served to the audience that they're asking for, that I have the capability to provide. That's your sweet spot."
  — Josh Pate [27:09]

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Conclusion: Key Takeaways

Josh Pate's conversation with Ryan Alford offers valuable insights into navigating the modern media landscape. His emphasis on authentic relationships, niche specialization, and audience-centric content serves as a blueprint for aspiring media professionals. Additionally, his forward-thinking perspectives on the future of college football media highlight the ongoing evolution driven by new media platforms.

Final Thoughts:

• Authenticity is Paramount: Building genuine connections with both sponsors and audiences leads to sustainable success.
• Specialize to Thrive: Focusing on a specific niche allows for deeper engagement and differentiation in a saturated market.
• Adapt to Evolve: Embracing new media trends and technologies is essential for staying relevant and competitive.

For those interested in delving deeper into Josh Pate's strategies and insights, his show is available on YouTube and various podcast platforms under "Josh Pate's College Football Show."

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Learn More:
Visit www.RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Follow Right About Now on Instagram at @rightaboutnowshow and @ryanalford.

Transcript

[Matt Reynolds]

Struggling to grow or start your business or drowning in an ocean of urgency. You're not alone. I'm Matt Reynolds and my brother Chris and I have been in the trenches of entrepreneurship for nearly 40 years combined. We've built successful companies from the ground up. We're sharing our hard earning lessons and practical strategies on the build you'd business podcast. And I'm excited to say that the build your business podcast is the newest addition to the Radcast Network. Learn more at Turnkey Coach. Build or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

[Josh Pate]

You've got to be the brand. But then when you say that, you gotta understand what you mean when you say that. A lot of people say that and it's just the most douchebag, like, conceited thing imaginable and like bragging about yourself as you're the brand. That is not the case at all.

[Ryan Alford]

This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month, taking the BS out of business for over 6 years in over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash and checks? Well, it starts right about now.

What's up, guys? Welcome to right about now. Hey, we're always getting right. We're always talking about what's now. And you know, we talk about media, but look, you see a smile on my face. I love every guest. They're all my, like my, my children, my babies. I love, I appreciate every one of them. But when I get to talk college football and media all in one, and that's why I'm going to the source. He is the host of the Josh Pate show and he is a CBS analyst for college football. What's up, Josh, man?

[Josh Pate]

You, you got me excited now because I want to talk about both of those things as well. And here we are, we're leading up to what most people call pre Thanksgiving season. And folks like me and you are like, yeah, that's wonderful. And I love the food and I love the family, but brother, we got to figure out the college football playoff. We got a brand new format coming up and it's, it is an exciting time on all fronts to be in, in my little corner of the media industry.

[Ryan Alford]

Hey, man, yeah, yeah, yeah. I buy, I ain't buying that little corner. But, but we'll get to that. Josh has made a name for himself with college football. I respect. I, I'll say this, and I'm not, I'm not a, I'm kind of telling like it is, Josh, if, you know, I don't have anybody on a like. But I don't always agree with everything. But I do have come to find your judgment to be some of the best in college football. It's unfettered by, you know, any one team and even when I don't like it, I agree with it. So I'm like, damn. Because you know, as a Clemson grad and Clemson fan, you know, and winning two national titles and you know, being at the top of the heap for a long time to not to acknowledge or know, we've taken a little bit of a step back. Some people would kill for even our step back. And I have to realize that every, you know, you know, our, our second step is a lot of people's great first best step. But when you set that standard, it's, but it's hurt me. I've, I've had to watch as you've been brutally honest and I feel like brutally accurate.

[Josh Pate]

Yeah, here's the thing, here's the thing, you know, you know that you're only a prisoner of your own success. If this were, I mean, if this were Clemson circa 0405 06, everyone would kill to be just a 9 or a 10 win program. But to go back to what you're saying there, when I was growing up, I used to immerse myself in sports talk radio. I worked construction for a little while. I worked heating and air installation. So you're on the job site all day. The only way to make 8am Become 5pm Is your lunch break and then what you're listening to. And so I'm just listening to sports talk all day and I remember my buddies would get just pissed off because everyone wasn't praising Georgia or praising Auburn. And I'd listen to it and I may not like what a guy said, but I would appreciate the information. I didn't need the affirmation because I already knew how I felt. So I didn't need anyone to stroke my opinion. I just wanted information I wanted like logic based viewpoints. I'll determine, I'll run it through my own filters. I'll determine whether I like it or whether I approve of it or not. And I always thought to myself, hey, if you ever get in a spot where someone puts a microphone in front of your face, just do it like that. Do it, do it. Do content the way you appreciated it being done. It's not, I don't think it's a radical concept, but not a lot of people practice it.

[Ryan Alford]

No, man. And I'll say this, Josh, what I preach about you is, it's if you remember this, and people that listen to talk will remember, you know, at one time you had, like, the no spin zone. I feel like, Josh, you are the no spin zone for college football. I do. Again, anyone thinks that you're not, it's because they probably don't. They're a fan of whoever, like, you know, you might be beaten on that day. Because the reality is, you know, sometimes your baby's ugly.

[Josh Pate]

Yeah. Boom, boom. And you know what? You know what? You don't have to be a doctor to spot an ugly baby. One of my favorite things is they'll come at me and they'll say, well, you never coached. How could you call this out? And I will always tell them, man, I've never been a doctor, but I know an ugly baby when I see one. And you do as well.

[Ryan Alford]

Josh, set the table for our audience a little bit. I want to build up, you know, we're going to be talking today for our audience listening about new media. I mean, I think that's really what I'd couch this in, in the power and impact of YouTube. You're owning your own brand content, social media, all the power of these things through the lens of college football. But Josh set the table for everyone and kind of give them your background. And building up to today, it is.

[Josh Pate]

A perfect encapsulation of what new media has presented the opportunity to do. Because I grew up down in rural Georgia. I had no family in the business. When I graduated high school, I was. I'm not going to go as far as to call myself a deadbeat, but I was very directionless. If you asked me, what's your career goal? What are you passionate about? If you ask Mouth, I'll back up. If you ask me, who are you? When I graduated high school, I could never give you the answer. I'd be able to tell you my height, my weight, my eye color, the birth certificate stuff, basically. But I would not be able to tell you what my talents were, what my passions were, where do they overlap? You know, like, what's your direction? What's your purpose? What's your why? And took a long time because I didn't grow up dirt poor, but I didn't grow up rich. I was just kind of a tweener kid, closer to the poor than the rich. But I never. I don't know, I just wasn't shot out of a cannon the way some of my peers seem to come out of High school. So I went and I wasted a couple of years in college and ended up dropping out and going and doing, like I said, construction work. I did all kinds of different manual labor jobs and slowly but surely got my act together a little bit. Slowly but surely the right people just continued to beat on me and beat on me and beat on me until I got back in school. But that kind of coincided with the rise of digital media. And so what I did was I just, I just badgered a radio program director that I listened to every day and I said, can I come in and observe? I think I want to do that, that stuff. I immerse myself in it. I think I have the God given ability to do it. But I don't know because no one's ever given me a shot. Can I come in and watch you produce radio? So he let me go in there and a couple of. A few weeks in, his co host calls out sick one day. So I just got put on the air one day and it's afternoon drive sports talk radio in the Deep south in the middle of college football season. And so I mean live, bullets flying, and I love it. I've never had more fun in my life. And we got off air at like 7:01pm that afternoon and he said, where have you worked before? And I said, I've never done this before. I've just pretended to do it driving around in my truck for years, but I've never actually done it. He said, well, man, I'd love for you to just stay on the air. So I stayed on the air and that turned into a television general manager calling me up a couple of years later. Hey, do you want to do what you do but do it on tv? Said, sure. I've never been on tv. Is that a problem? Oh no, man, it's easy. So TV ended up being the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. And then I elevated to being a sports anchor and then a news anchor and I'm doing the college football stuff on the side. But that brings me to what I was just saying. This is mid-2010s. This is not that long ago, this is less than a decade ago. And I will so vividly remember for the rest of my life sitting next to our chief meteorologist one day after a newscast and his computer screens like in the background. He's sitting here, computer screens in the background, and he's got his Facebook feed pulled up and I saw a live video playing on his Facebook feed. And I said, what's happening there. He said, oh, it's just a Facebook Live feed. I didn't know that they had just launched that software. That was a Berlin Wall moment. And then YouTube shortly thereafter introduces live capability on their platform. So to me, I've been sitting here thinking the whole time, the whole key to this game, as you know, is overhead and distribution. Back then, you got to have the big fancy studios to make your product look the way it's supposed to be. And then, and then you've also got to have the distribution so that someone can see you in LA and Seattle and Miami and New York all at the same time. And if you don't have those or you don't have syndication deals, you don't have a nationwide audience, then the Internet gets weaponized and leveraged the right way. And overhead and distribution are literally, if you're holding your phone, it's at your fingertips. And I realized at that point, man, I got a shot. If I really am what I think I am, if I really got the ability, if I can really appeal and mass communicate this stuff in an entertaining way, I've got a shot. And so we started to immediately I started to conceptually put that together and it was a fight. It was a multi year fight. But finally got to where I was willing to work as an independent contractor instead of an employee at that news station in exchange for getting access to that studio a few nights a week. And we started producing a college football show on YouTube. Started it from scratch and we started doing it. And a couple years in, I was, I was already making more money on the YouTube channel than I had ever made in local news. And it was at that point that CBS hit me up and they said, we're not doing anything like you're doing. And we know we should, we know that's the direction it's going. Would you like to come here? And so I came to CBS in 2020, and when Covid set in and everyone else started talking about everything other than sports, I just stuck to sports because that's what I know. And our numbers, man, they just shot through the roof. Cause a bunch of those networks alienated their audience because of what they were they were trying to present that the audience wanted nothing to do with. And so then when football came back in 2020 and beyond, we've never slowed down. And we got the number one college football show in all of digital media now. And you're excited by that and you love it. Now I get all kinds of opportunity. It's amazing. It's a Dream job. But I know 2024 still looks like the infancy of this whole thing relative to what 2034 will look like. And so you call it new media. I remember not too long ago they called it alternative media. It's not the alternative. It is. It is the way I think a lot of folks, if you watch the way that the election was covered from either side, left or right, the way it was covered this past cycle, it wasn't covered in a legacy manner. Far more people went to those alternative new watering holes than they did the traditional. And that's not going back. And that we are downstream sports media and any kind of little niche industry that you could be in, in the media world, it's all downstream of that. If that's the way an election is going to work, I promise you it's the way any other form of content is going to work moving forward.

[Ryan Alford]

Bingo. Write that down. Highlight clip, that whole segment, Josh. Literally, that is the way it's moving. And I don't think people realized. I don't think they realize. I think you're right. We're still in the precipice of all of this. The democratization of distribution that this thing has allowed. It's been around. And look, I marketed this. What I did the first of my career was all marketing smartphones and worked in the first iPhone and can you hear me now? And all that. And I saw this coming. I didn't know it would be exactly played out the way it is, but the way that distribution and awareness has been democratized through the smartphone, through YouTube, through Now, the apps all being on the television, I mean, linear tv. I look, the only thing keeping cable companies alive is live sports.

[Josh Pate]

That's right.

[Ryan Alford]

And those deals are getting undone. I mean, we're, we're. I mean, we're moments away from probably every station being an app. Just about you're packaging those things. It's. It's crazy what's happening in that field.

[Josh Pate]

It's amazing that you talked about it. The only thing holding that, that whole bundle together, if you will, is live sports. And then in my business, what that does from a talent perspective, what it does from a representation and agency perspective is it makes you realize, well, I've got to have dual roles or I've got to contractually define myself in two different lanes. I've got the broadcast version of me. Now, I don't do play by play or color or anything like that, but a lot of my friends do a Joel Platt, for example, or Greg McElroy. Those guys have broadcast talent deals with a Fox or an espn. But then, you know, Greg would have a separate deal with Omaha Productions, which is Peyton Manning's company, and he licenses his podcast through them. Joel, the same thing happens to be with Fox right now, but that's the way it's going for everyone. And what I wonder is if you've got networks that are spending the billions that they're spending, that the Big Ten makes $8 billion over the next seven years for their TV deal. If you're going to invest that kind of money, whether you're cbs, whether you're Fox, whether you're NBC, do you not look at the ecosystem of commentary that exists around something like college football and think we need to invest in that? Like we need to leverage that? Because we just have them on Saturdays for four hours right now. Those people have them the other six days and change. Why are we not investing more in that now? I expect those conversations have been happening. In fact, I know they've been happening. And so this is kind of a put yourself in the right place and then the right time will find you sort of ideology.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, for sure. Talking with Josh Pate. He is the host of the Josh Pate show and the king of new media, one of the kings at the table. Josh, talk to me. When you first started on YouTube, I want to get actionable for our audience, you know, and you went live, started doing your live show on YouTube and you said you started making more money than made, and you'd even made in broadcast to that date. Are we talking about direct from YouTube, like ad plays or whatever, or just you were immediately doing sponsor deals on.

[Josh Pate]

Your channel that would have been just adsense dollars.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah.

[Josh Pate]

In the immediacy. Now, I'll tell you what did happen. So to say I was making more money, it's not a high bar to clear because I was making $27,500 a year multiple years into doing news. What happened was we monetized the channel. We made to me, really good money at the time. But also what happened one day was there was. There was a guy, he was the representative for Buffalo Rock, which is the Pepsi distributor, Mountain Dew, et cetera. And he's there to meet with clients at the TV station one day. And I just happened to see him, and he had happened to see the show on Facebook Live at the time, in YouTube live. And so he's walking through now, look, this is, this is the end of probably his quarterly. He's still got ad dollars that he needs to allocate somewhere. He just happens to have 25 or 30,000 extra ad dollars that he probably just needs to put in the 25 to 48 male demographic somewhere. And let's lean into sports. And so I'm having a conversation with him and we're talking about this sort of thing. He says, well, how would you like Pepsi, how would you like Pepsi to be a sponsor on the show? Now I'm green as grass. I have no clue how this world works. But that was my first interaction with ad sales for the show. Well, what the lesson it taught me was I didn't have a third party go out and do that for me and I didn't have an agency bring him to me. That was a direct face to face partnership and I swear to you, that was one of the biggest blessings that ever happened. Because moving forward, I realized that right there, no matter how high in this industry I climb, is exactly how I want my partnerships to be. So you fast forward to today. I've got a huge deal with Academy Sports. I've got FanDuel Sports on board. We just signed a big deal with Quick Trip, which is a huge gas station chain for those unfamiliar earlier this year. And we just partnered with Xevia, which is a zero sugar soda. I have personal relationships with all of those clients. I deal directly with all those clients. And what that does is it means they come with you wherever you go. And that along with owning your intellectual property and owning your branding, if you can ever pull it off, and it is much harder done than said, but if you could ever pull it off, that is like, that's the brass ring on this new frontier. That's the brass ring. And the reason I'm so proud about it, like the reason I speak so boldly about it is because I've had a lot of whiffs in life. I've had a lot of predictions that don't come true. But like you were talking about selling the smartphones a generation ago and you could see it coming. I could see this coming and I could see that. I thought the model was build it the way we built it, prove it, have it prove itself, and then simultaneously get your personal relationships with your clients. And you need to do that and you need to select them based on understanding your audience and the people you serve better than any ad agency or any corporate media entity ever will. And if you really have that granular a relationship with your audience, ad partners will take care of themselves, the numbers will take care of themselves, and you will be able to empower Yourself above and beyond what you could have ever hoped to do in the, in the old landscape.

[Ryan Alford]

Yep, boom, there it is. And you know so many people. I really want to touch on what you said and I agree. I'm happy for you. I'm so thankful for you that you experienced that direct sell for yourself because you, you both made yourself a lot of money. And I would say as much as you made money, you avoided like the pitfalls of just some of the signing with people that aren't really that motivated to work that hard for you, that are just looking for percentage deals. And you got to learn exactly how it all works. And I can't stress enough for anybody hearing that that the most lucrative deals are the most personal deals and the most like you. And I'm guilty of this at times with our show and things that we do. Like you can't. You have to be involved with this stuff. You know, when you're building, especially it's the Josh Page show, right? I mean, you know, right about now with Ryan offered, like it's, it's tied to your personal brand and tied to you and you can hire and build a team and do all those things, but you got to know this stuff and understand it at a really high level.

[Josh Pate]

You've got to be the brand. But then when you say that, you got to understand what you mean when you say that. A lot of people say that and it's just the most douchebag like conceded thing imaginable and like bragging about yourself as you're the brand. That is not the case at all. At least the way that I look at myself, the way I look at myself is I am a total product of our audience and I am a total product of what they've allowed me to do. And the reason they've allowed me to do it is because of the same reason somebody keeps coming back to the same restaurants. Because you're serving them what they're asking for. And I think two of the biggest pitfalls is, number one, people getting ignorant or self absorbed enough to where they believe they're the big deal and therefore they're going to stack their show or they're going to produce their content around what they care about and the audience will just consume it because they're a bunch of clapping seals. That's pitfall number one. Pitfall number two is you do what you do, the audience reciprocates with their viewership traffic or their listenership traffic, therefore it props you up and then you get up on the mountaintop and then you decide, all right, now I'm going to change everything. Now all of a sudden I need to add bells and whistles. Now I need to dress different. Now I need to cover more things than I got here covering. And it happens so often. I can't tell you how many times already in the past four years since I've been here, I've been approached about covering other sports, covering the NFL. And there's a reason for that, because I think, you know, the powers that be look at this model and they say, why don't we apply that model to the NFL? Imagine the traffic. Well, they're right to think that it would do really good traffic, but it would be so inauthentic and disingenuous and it would take, it would be so pennywise pound foolish to try and merge what we're doing here into other lanes. My response to that is I'm good in college football. If you think what I do is effective and would be effective, then go find the person to execute it in that lane. I do. The reason I respect McAfee so much is Pat's doing something right now that I don't think is going to be duplicated, number one, because it takes a really, really special kind of person to do what he does. But then, even if you are a special person, you got to understand in the general arena, by generalist, I mean folks who cover a lot of things. Pat talks about NFL, college football, NBA. You're going to have a trailblazer and then you're going to have a bunch of duplicates. You're going to have a bunch of copycats. There's only one original. And I am telling you, in a more niche based, individualized world where people go to exactly what they want. I want college football. I go search for college football. I go search for NBA. To be able to talk about it all and to be able to convince a network to give you millions of dollars to talk about it all and to be able to command not just the numbers, but the retention. The retention is the key metric. How often and how frequently can you keep people coming back and tuned in? To be able to do that is so special. I've never had the passion to want to pursue the generalist arena, but even if I did, dude, there's no guarantee that works. Because why? I just ask myself, why would I listen to me talk about the NBA? I may listen to me talk about college football. I'd never listened to me talk about baseball or the NBA. So if I wouldn't listen to myself do it. Why would I ever just blindly assume that other people would waste their time doing it?

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, exactly. The riches are typically in the niches, except for the outliers, you know, but those are. But it's kind of like, you know, also the. The young kid that makes a million dollars on YouTube, that's one in a billion kids. You know, like, talking with Josh Pate. He's the host of the Josh Page Show. Josh. You Talked about Pat McAfee. I don't want to beleaguer him, like, talk about him too much, but I do think him. He's. It's a similar path. Was. I mean, what. Didn't he start YouTube first? Was he. I mean, I know he's. He's an ex NFL kicker, but I think he built that audience. And I. And I think the only thing I would do is parallel with what you've done, is you guys both build audiences that then you sort of monetized right after the fact. I mean, then that's. That's the similarity, isn't it?

[Josh Pate]

I think so. I think what we do, even though there's not been an intentional mirroring of what we do, what Pat does, he. His timeline of his ascendance has sort of coincided in the generalist arena with what we've been doing in the college football arena. So, I mean, you can't miss him. Obviously, he's everywhere, and I'm at games a lot of times. In fact, more. More often than not, I'll be the same place he is every week. I see him a lot, but even if I didn't ever run into him, you see him from a distance and you understand, wow. Some of the elements that have made him successful are the same things that we're getting big return on here. And it's the same principle. It's the same thing of develop yourself, clearly define who you are and what you're about. Listen. Just shut up and listen to your audience through their actual feedback and through their traffic patterns. Continue to give them what they're asking for and continue to filter out what it is that you may love, but they don't love because it's a show for them, not for you. And then the other thing you need to do that he has been very good at doing is being keenly aware of your space and keenly aware of what the other offerings are out there. I think the mistake that a lot of people in a competitive industry make is they spend all their time looking at the other folks who are doing what they do. And measuring themselves against those other people, well, that's not the way competition should work. In an on demand world. In an on demand world, if you and I are doing the same thing, they'll just go listen to you, then listen to me. If they like a smoke, okay? It's not, it's not like we're both on from 3 to 7 on terrestrial radio in 1993. But the mistake I could also make, even if I understand that concept, is I go look at you and I judge you based on your strengths and weaknesses. That's not it. What we need to be doing is you need to define who the other guys in the space are. Define yourself and define the audience. But if you triple Venn diagram that, what you need to be focused on identifying is where is the overlap of me and the audience where the other guy doesn't overlap. In other words, what is not being served to the audience that they're asking for, that I have the capability to provide. That's your sweet spot. That's your difference making arena. That's where you're going to earn generational wealth and income. And you can clearly see it. If you turn on Pat's show, you can clearly see what's on that show. That's not anywhere else. On my show you would turn it on. On your show, you would turn it on because they're all successful products. And you will very clearly see if you watch any length of time. There is a thing, there's an element that exists here that doesn't exist anywhere else in the space. And it really works. And it works because these people aren't trying to copy anyone else's formula. Yes, success leaves clues, but you take the clues and apply them to you. You don't try and copy them. And so you know, when you understand how to harness that. I'm not ever saying it's easy, but it starts to click, it starts to make so much sense and it starts to feel natural because you're just doing you like you're doing what's in your wheelhouse.

[Ryan Alford]

Bingo. Savannah, you take a good notes here because Josh is giving a masterclass, reminding me like, Josh, like you. And I think a lot of the like. And that's why I like you. That's why I want you to be a friend, even if just for far. I'm going to say you are. But like, I literally. We think a lot alike, but you're reminding me of like things, of why I did certain things. I'm like, I need to, I gotta remember that Josh is on his soapbox and he's in. He's in the pulpit and I'm sitting in the audience. You remember if you grew up in the south, the deacon would go, amen. Hallelujah. That's me. That was me. Oh, Josh. So talk to me about once you started developing these relationships with sponsors, how, what was the origins like? Did you just identify ones that you thought made sense and just go straight at them?

[Josh Pate]

They came at us, but yes, we identified. I told the audience a long time ago, I'm always really upfront with them about this stuff. Sometimes the folks at CBS didn't even like how upfront I was, but I'd tell them, I still tell them today you're never going to see the show look like a NASCAR race where there's just signage all over the place and we could make it like that. I've had two conversations with potential partners this morning already as you and I talk. I never wanted the show to be like that because I know when I listen to podcasts, I know. I mean, you just instinctively know if you got one that's got 10 sponsors, you know when one's coming, you know you're going to just hit the fast forward button and there's nothing. It's so transactional. It's just a reader, someone's reading copy that was put in their hand. There's no built in value for me as the listener or the viewer. So I told them two things. Number one, we're always going to have fun with any partner that we do have. Number two, we are not going to have many partners. But number three, it's going to make sense and I'm going to make sure I get something for you out of any partnership we have. So we bring on Academy Sports and Outdoors. It's a sporting goods and an outdoors partner that's littered throughout the south that heavily overlaps with our demos. It makes perfect sense. But I told them, you got to give me a ton of free stuff to give away, especially around Christmas. Like I want to be able to give away thousands and thousands of dollars of gift cards and whatnot. And they said, no problem. So they just baked it into their ad spend, quick trip, comes on board. I tell them gas prices are insane right now. I know you guys don't control that, but what you can control is you give me X amount of dollars I want baked into this thing, a budget for giveaway and they put in $20,000 worth of gas giveaway into my quarterly budget. So, I mean, think about that. Now think about being on air and you're doing your quick trip ad read, but really what it is is you're just giving away tanks of gas at random. Like think about how that engages your audience and it endears them to your partner a whole lot more so than just an ad read ever would. Xevia, Same thing like we do. Very, very granularly integrated partnerships that make sense, there's a return on the investment. And then also we have a lot of fun with those partners. I tell them up front I don't want to read your copy on the air. And that's not being disrespectful. I'm telling you, if you'll just let me do this thing ad libbed, I promise it'll return so much bang for your buck. So much more than it would if we just did it the old fashioned way. So to their credit, all those partners have been on board with that. It takes like a week and then they'll hit us back and say, okay, it makes sense now. Like we get what you meant now don't listen to us. Just keep doing whatever it is you're doing. We're seeing incredible traffic and we're good with this. And so it's not the way it had been done. I think it's the way it should be done.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. I mean, dude, organic is the way that look, everybody knows they're being marketed to these days. The gig is up and nobody's watching linear TV anymore other than live sports. And so you're not getting the reach and frequency. So you need these impressions that are real, that are, that feel organic and are tied to the brand and the audience the way they need to. Brilliant. Doing the gas thing, I mean, dude, checking all the boxes, brother.

[Josh Pate]

Think about this, Ryan, Think about this now. Also, it is insane how loyal our audience is. I'm sure you feel the same thing from your folks towards you. And the biggest point of pride I take in what we've built is I don't bring on many partners. When I do, there's almost an accepted responsibility that the audience feels because they reflect it in their activity and their engagement. When we bring on a partner, and Xevia is just the most recent one we brought on that's in the last month, the response has been insane. They go out of their way to go to a store and look for a drink they never would have sought out before and not only do that but take pictures of themselves doing it, post it on Social and tag you and tag the partner and say just Straight up front. I'm doing this. Cause he told me to. You can never take that for granted. Don't ever. Don't ever weaponize it. Don't ever take it for granted. But when you have that and then you imagine like a media company seeing that kind of audience and imagine an ad partner seeing that kind of engagement. What you ought to do if you're me is appreciated. What you ought to do if you're not me is you ought to look at it and say, why is that the way it is? How do we take that model and duplicate it? Who else could pull that off? Because it may be that there are many other people out there capable of pulling that off. They just don't all have journalism degrees from Syracuse and Northwestern, per se.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. And they don't understand that you don't always need to take. Sometimes you give and you get more in return.

[Josh Pate]

Crazy, right? It's almost like. Almost like people should have written books on that a long time.

[Ryan Alford]

It's like, damn, I think I heard that growing up. And the Golden Rule or the Bible or something, you know, like those words.

[Josh Pate]

Those words tended to be in red a lot, as I recall.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. In the New Testament. Oh, man. Josh, what's. What's kind of on the horizon for you? Like, you know, with the show? Like, are there things obviously killing it? The show's growing, your awareness is growing, audience growing, like. But anything that's kind of on that horizon with what you're doing with the media company and all that stuff.

[Josh Pate]

Yeah, we did something a few times this year that's been one of the most fun things that I've done. We didn't market it. We didn't create anything around it. It's just been organic. So I go to a game every weekend. I pick a game. I go to it every weekend. Like, I'll go to Athens this weekend for Tennessee Georgia. I'll normally do my Thursday show. I'll fly out or I'll drive and I'll get to the place Thursday night and I'll just be on campus Friday. Nothing like a campus. Like 24 hours leading up to game day. And so what I started doing, we were at Bama like a month and a half ago. The journalism and business class asked me to come speak. It's like, okay, so it's about 150, 200 kids. You speak to them. It's a Q and A format. Just so fulfilling, like, unbelievable. We go to Penn State, we do it again. We go to A and M. We do it again. And about the third time I did it, you walk out and you realize we just did a show like that. If we just broadcast that, if we captured that, it would be informative, it would be entertaining, it would check all the boxes. Engage, entertain, enlighten, and inform is the four boxes we always want to check with any content we produce. Well, that checks all those boxes. We've got everything from content strategy to who's going to win Saturday, like all of the students asking the question. So I want to build something around that. And that would be a next year thing. I want to do that. But then also on the more broad scale. You know, I grew up watching College Game Day. And I grew up and it was the way it was as I was a kid. And I never could have imagined Fast forwarding to 2024 and seeing the lineup and the cast of characters that's on there today. I never could have imagined that sports would be presented the way it is today, 20 years ago. And so I just wonder, sort of in the vein that we were just talking about as it relates to what's next. I wonder as these broadcast partners look at how much money that they have invested into the live media rights deals to broadcast these games. I just kind of leave myself open and balls in their court, so to speak, of, you know, you got some folks in this space with pretty big audiences, and it is a 100% overlap of your demographic. The people who are watching your games on Saturday are here or are over there or over there with him or him Sunday through Friday. Is there any kind of creative engagement and interaction and involvement that someone even like me might be able to have with those productions? Don't need it. And totally blessed where I am, I'm not even begging for it, but I always leave myself open to that. Cause I think there may be some really creative ideas and conceptually, some really good ways to infuse what my world consists of versus what that game day broadcast consists of. That just because it hasn't been broached yet doesn't mean it can't be broached. And then beyond that, just our numbers continue to rise every year. So I'm just curious, like, how big can this space become? Just the college football new media space.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, man. So game day, if you're listening, and I know some people, I mean, you know more than I do probably in that space. But yeah, call my brother Josh. Like, I'm telling you, you need to bring these worlds together. I think you're making enough noise. Your Phone might be ringing sooner than later, if I had a feeling. But I think you're right, man. There's something about, I don't know where my mind. When you were talking about that was the activity that you have during the week that leads up to. Because I feel like Saturday's game day is all about Saturday and the games that day. And I know they film a few vignettes like depending on what campus they're on. But there's something really interesting about the analysis that you do throughout the week and how that can be integrated into Saturday.

[Josh Pate]

I agree with you. The one, the one element that I've always thought is lacking from a broadcast. Two things really, and they've never made sense to me. The first is when you watch an NFL broadcast, it is almost presented against the backdrop of the NFL draft. Everyone knows where a guy was drafted. Everyone knows where he played college. Like that's just part of the story of an NFL Sunday. That is not the way that college football games have been broadcast. And it's so funny that the talent acquisition arm of college football is like its own little college cultish industry. It's like, do you follow recruiting? Yes. Do you follow college football? Yes. It's one in the same. It's no different than the draft and NFL on Sunday. But college football broadcasts have never developed the capability of like speaking recruiting fluently. That's the first thing. And I don't claim on being a specialist in that arena. But the second one, and I think I do have a pretty good grasp on when you are watching like lsu, Alabama, last weekend we were at that game. When you're watching that game, I don't doubt that Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreet are doing a phenomenal job on play by play. They got the best presentation folks in the world. So I'm sure they're capturing the ambiance and the spectacle. I'm sure Holly Rose getting you injury updates on the sideline. But where's the person to add the context of, you know, these LSU folks, they're really disgruntled and they're unhappy. Wow, look at this stadium clearing out. Like, where is the loyalty? Well, where's the person who tells you, you know, when Brian Kelly got to LSU in his first year, what people don't realize is he removed a lot of the Louisiana flavor from the program. He fired a lot of people that were long time like institutional Louisiana people in the program and it rubbed the fan base the wrong way. And as long as he wins, he has enough equity. But that Equity is very short lived if they lose. He does not have the benefit of the doubt per se from this fan base because he did not endear himself to them in the early outset of his tenure here. That stuff matters. That is stuff that people are talking about year round, Monday through Friday included, down on the bayou. But if you just swoop in there as a national broadcast team and your job is to know depth charts and your job is to know injury updates and your job is to know transition in and out of break, play by play, that's just not at the forefront of your mind, but it's at the forefront of someone like me, Michael. That's all I do every week. And I just, I think that's the element that I would love to see added to some of these major broadcasts. And it just takes you, it takes you further. It immerses the audience further. Everybody knows everything about the NFL when they watch a game. I still think there's a lot about college football that's a total mystery to the casual viewer that can easily be explained with the proper context.

[Ryan Alford]

I got an idea. The jpp. So here's what it is. It's a pulse meter on the screen. And it comes on. The JPP comes on when they're talking about two teams. And when they're talking about two teams, the JPP meter starts pulsing and Josh Pate breaks in.

[Josh Pate]

Oh, beautiful.

[Ryan Alford]

He gives him the Josh Pate pulse, which is the inside of the inside of that kind of shit.

[Josh Pate]

So I guess it's like a mechanism you put on my shirt and the harder, the harder I pound my chest, the more.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, but I'd say on the, on the, on the game day actually broadcast, you have the jpp, the Josh Paint pulse, which is the insiders, insider stuff on any given matchup. And you don't do it on every game, but let's just say five games a weekend, you know, you get the JPP meter pulsing because there's some, there's a, there's news behind the news.

[Josh Pate]

I'm all for it. Now, I assume you haven't trademarked that yet, so it's still out there to be had.

[Ryan Alford]

But yeah, no, I just made that up, dude. I'm an idea guy. But I think that's the integration. That's what we're talking about. Like the, the real inside scoop, like the deep, deep knowledge, the deep pulse. I don't know, man. I agree with you. There is some. It's surface level for sure. And I think that's why, like your, your show is like the depth and that's why it's popular all week, you know, is the depth of the insight and the knowledge that you know. And I think you nailed it like that. That encapsulates for me for why stay in your lane, dude. You can't, you can't get that granular if you're doing 12 sports, right?

[Josh Pate]

Yeah, it's why I don't do it. It's because I've always thought to myself, if this were 1993, but the new media world exists, you'd have like one or two or three people covering all of sports and so you wouldn't have to dive deep. But that's, it's not that way. Everyone's got access to this stuff. So with the proliferation and saturation of any given market, inevitably someone's going to dive deeper and deeper and deeper in a lane of that market. Therefore, me as the consumer. Why would I ever listen to someone scratch the surface of all of these lanes when any given lane has someone going five layers deeper? I'll just listen to the dude going five layers deeper. It's why I'm still fascinated that these weekday shows, these morning shows during the week on ESPN or FS1 or whatnot, I'm fascinated that they do traffic. I'm all for it, man. Like get as much viewership, make as much money as you can. I'm all for it. I am just, I'm just so fascinated that that still has broad appeal when you have such specialized and custom made on demand content in any given lane now.

[Ryan Alford]

Yep, Josh, as we close out, what's. Give me your state of the state of college football. You know, we're sort of in this wild, wild west with nil and all that stuff. But what's your. Both your pulse, your knowledge, watching it and maybe what you're hearing from the insiders. Like, I mean the 12 man things lining up. There's drama already from it, but I mean, give me the state of the state of the state and where you think, who you think is going to win, win at all this year?

[Josh Pate]

Well, I, I'll start from the back and worked at the front. Oregon's the best team I've seen this year. I still think there's a lot of potential with Texas. I'm not writing Texas off at all. I really think if they click, they can be as good as anyone. Wonder about Ohio State's offensive line if they have to win three games against really plus level defensive fronts. Alabama, if they run Jalen Miller like they just did can compete with anyone.

[Ryan Alford]

Good grief.

[Josh Pate]

Yeah. But the state of college football overall is like, we're living in the middle of a documentary. We're about a third to two thirds of the way through the documentary, but we don't realize we're living in it right now. I think by the time this documentary concludes, we will have got to a place where revenue sharing is fully incorporated into college football. There isn't so much random parody and, like, competitive balance. The big boys will largely reestablish themselves as the big boys. And maybe that's through natural selection or maybe that's through brute force strength of the SEC and Big Ten saying, we're going to flex on you until we get it set the way we want. I think self governance overtakes NCAA governance. I think that goes to the conference level and they take it upon themselves to police themselves. I think you will look back and you will look at some coaches that were fired during this period and in retrospect, say, man, that guy never had a chance. He was just. He was in the path of the tornado. Like Andy Dufresne said in Shawshank, I was just the path of the tornado. And I also. I would not be shocked if we see a major coach or two not retire, but just step away from the sport for a few years, wait for it to settle itself, and then get back in. If I were 48 years old right now and I had security, I could step away. I could go do TV for five years, make really good money, and then step back in at 54 or 55 years old, still have another 15 years of coaching. But I don't have to worry about the mess that NIL is right now and the mess that the portal is right now. Hopefully cooler heads inject themselves and they get the thing righted. And I think in the near future, we'll have whatever the new college football is established. We'll have it. We're just not there right now. We are. We have not even come to the point where we can assess the damage because we're in the middle of the storm. The storm will pass, then you'll assess the damage, then you'll. You'll rebuild. And this is heavily metaphorical, obviously, but it'll be. It'll be whatever the new normal is in a few years. It's just not there right now, clearly.

[Ryan Alford]

And I wonder if it's like an arms race, like, because right now it's seemingly whoever can write the largest check. I mean, and there's no salary cap, right?

[Josh Pate]

I'll Tell you the trade off to that, though. I'll tell you the trade off. I've talked to a lot of coaches about this. There was a fear slash theory at the outset of the whole Wild west era that that's what it would be. Just whoever writes the biggest check and hands out the most bags, that's who's going to win because that's who will get the talent. Well, A and M was an extreme example of that a couple of cycles ago. And they go and they buy the highest rated recruiting class of all time. And it's not there anymore. Because what guys have found is it is a whole lot more complex than just paying guys a lot of money. You have to be able to spend. True. But you have to be able to make kids buy you. At the end of the day, they have to buy Texas A and M, they have to buy Oregon, they have to buy Texas. Because really what it comes down to is the only way to maximize that talent is if that talent is all in for you. If that talent's willing to go over a cliff for you. Because the competition will be willing to inevitably whoever you play. And if you just hire mercenaries, they'll look good, they'll make some big plays, but when it comes time to stick their face in the fan, when it comes time to go over the cliff, those guys aren't bought into you. They're bought in enough, but they're not bought into you. They're not there for those reasons. So the fine line is we need to be able to spend competitively, but we also need to create a culture that they buy into. And that is the needle that a lot of these places are trying to thread right now.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, I'm hoping my, my boy Dabo can figure it out because he's got half that equation, right?

[Josh Pate]

Yeah, it sure does.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. The money, they got enough money and especially once they can pay direct. It's just whether or not he can kind of. I don't know. I think, Mike, most betting man that are outside the program, they. They're not betting for it. But it's hard.

[Josh Pate]

It's really hard on two fronts for me with Dabo. I don't have a personal relationship with him, so I just speak as an outsider like everyone else does. I really respect someone who defines their principles and values and sticks to them, whether I personally agree with them or not. Like, we just came through an election season. I got friends who voted the way I did and friends who voted opposite the way I did. As long as you're consistent in your message and you truly, in your heart, believe what you're espousing. I can roll with you don't have to agree across the board. I can roll with you. Dabo truly believes his messaging. He truly is convicted in the way he runs that program. Now, I look at it as someone who did not build Clemson and don't have the equity and sweat invested. And I could say, man, I wish he had bend a little here or bend a little there. And I think I'm right. But I'm not the one whose model made them a national champion. His is. And so I understand how it's hard to come off that. And I also understand if he looks and he says, oh, it's not that I'm not capable of coming off of it. I'm unwilling to come off of it. I dis. I can disagree with the stance, but respect it at the same time.

[Ryan Alford]

Me too. And you know, the dude's going to have a statue and deserves five of them outside the stadium. But it's getting a little bit to the point of, you know, we'll see how the season plays out.

[Josh Pate]

There you go. We feel the same way.

[Ryan Alford]

You know, it could teeter one way or the other, Josh. It's been a masterclass in media in general. I think we'll be dropping sooner than later the word new or alternative. It's just gonna. It's just media today. At the end of the day, Josh, where can I keep up? Learn more, watch the show. All. That's all the call outs.

[Josh Pate]

Yeah. First off, I appreciate you having me, man. This has been a lot of fun. If you. If you want it on YouTube, it's Josh Pates college football show. It's the same thing on podcast. It's my name on social, so it's pretty easy to find me. It's pretty consistent across the board.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, man. Four letters twice makes it Josh Pate. Hey, I encourage our listeners. If you're not in college football, you appreciate the wisdom and the knowledge and the directness that. That Josh brings. It's refreshing. It's a fresh voice. It's different. That's what I love about you, Josh. It's not only is it feels like no spin, but it's. There's somewhat of this blend of, like, academic, like, knowledge combined with approachability and fun. I don't know how you pull it off, but you do it well.

[Josh Pate]

I. Hey, look, that's exactly what we're going for. So you just summarize my business card better than my business card. I appreciate that, man.

[Ryan Alford]

Sweet. Hey, guys, you're to find us Ryan is right dot com, look for the highlight clips. And look, it's gonna be a masterclass in media from my friend Josh Pate. We're gonna have highlight clip score from this show. And look, you notify me I'm at Ryan Alford that blue check before you can buy it. We'll see you next time. Right about now.

This has been Right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast network production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.