We're going to go out on a limb and say that if you’re listening to this podcast, you have a connection to high school sports. You’re probably not playing them at the moment, but we bet you did at some point. Maybe you have kids who play them now.

Doesn’t matter. Whatever your connection or association, you know what a big deal high school sports are to students, families and communities.

And that passion is what drives Adam Gouttierre, VP of Media for Hudl.

For the uninitiated, Hudl provides video services to over 4000 high schools across the country. (The serve other sports verticals as well, but HS is their wheelhouse). They provide things like coaching analysis, game streaming, video hardware, and stuff like that. Millions of people watch their highlights and games on Hudl every week.

And Adam is in charge of packaging up all that content, and helping brands use it to reach their core audiences, wherever they may be.

In our conversation, we talk about Adam’s journey through the early days of online advertising markets, and what drew him to Hudl. We discuss the immense growth of Hudl, how the company makes high school sports accessible to brands, and his advice for what makes great storytelling content in sports.

ABOUT THIS PODCAST

The Sports Business Conversations podcast is a production of ADC Partners, a sports marketing agency that specializes in creating, managing, and evaluating effective partnerships between brands and sports. All rights reserved.

YOUR HOST

Dave Almy brings over 30 years of sports marketing and sports business experience to his role as host of the "1-on-1: Sports Business Conversations" podcast. Dave is the co-Founder of ADC Partners.

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00:02

Adam Gouttierre

Hey, this is Adam Gutierre, vice president of media at Huddle. And this is the Sports Business Conversations podcast from ADC Partners.

00:25

Dave Almy

Hey, this is Dave Alamy of ADC Partners, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if you're listening to this podc, you probably have a connection to high school sports in some way, shape or fashion. You're probably not playing them right now, but I'll bet you did at some point. Maybe you even have kids who play them right now.

00:42

Dave Almy

It doesn't matter, though.

00:43

Dave Almy

01:31

Dave Almy

Journey through the early days of online.

01:33

Dave Almy

Advertising markets and what drew him to Huddle. We discuss the immense growth of Huddle, how the company makes high school sports accessible to brands, and his advice for what makes great storytelling content in sports.

01:47

Dave Almy

And if you hang around long enough.

01:49

Dave Almy

You'Ll listen to the infamous lightning round to get turned back on your host. Shocking, indeed. So thanks for listening in on my conversation with Adam Gutierre, VP of Media for Huddle.

02:01

Dave Almy

Hope you enjoy. Adam, you, I think it's fair to say, had a pretty early and significant career pivot. Right. Because you started in politics before making the switch to technology and media. So can you give a little as a way to get started? What the heck happened? That's a change in trajectory.

02:26

Adam Gouttierre

Thank God I made that switch.

02:30

Dave Almy

02:35

Adam Gouttierre

So it was in the 90s and I was working for a senator, and there's these things called micro enterprise loans and. Oh, yeah, those are. They were sort of kind of new and innovative as a financial tool, and people that are living in May sort of areas that are unbanked was an interesting vehicle. And so it was kind of a fun and innovative government program, if you will. And so there was. So it goes back to Burwell, Nebraska. So Burwell in Nebraska. So Nebraska, for your listeners is in the middle of America and Burwell, Nebraska. Yes.

03:11

Dave Almy

See, not just sports business here. We get geography, too.

03:14

Adam Gouttierre

We get geography. And Burwell, Nebraska is in the middle of Nebraska.

03:17

Dave Almy

So it's the middle of the middle.

03:19

Adam Gouttierre

It's the middle of the middle. And there's about a thousand people in Burwell, Nebraska. And so there's this kid, this is again, the mid-90s, who had this. He was very good at building bird houses, believe it or not. And he thought, why not? I'm going to try to sell them. Sell these bird houses on this thing called the Internet.

03:38

Dave Almy

Oh, yeah, right.

03:41

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, they're great. So he created like a little storefront that sold birdhouses. And he was successful. He had people from all over the globe buying birdhouses, and he needed employees. So he ended up getting like, almost like an army of grandmas from Burwell that would help him make birdhouses. And I thought, this is probably the coolest economic development project I could be involved with.

04:01

Dave Almy

What an amazing story.

04:03

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah. So it's like, this is great. I think I'm gonna go follow tech.

04:07

Dave Almy

So you saw the economy was gonna do something completely different.

04:11

Adam Gouttierre

Well, I don't want to say it was that brilliant, but it's like it was you, Adam.

04:13

Dave Almy

It was you.

04:14

Adam Gouttierre

It was. If this kid can sell birdhouses from a small town in the middle of nowhere, then this is exciting. Right. And to think about the economic development for that town, the people who didn't have a job making birdhouses and selling them to people in England.

04:28

Dave Almy

Right. And doing things like customer service and fulfillment and all those kinds of things that go. Right. It's probably the quintessential idea between those micro lending programs. Yeah. How does that.

04:39

Adam Gouttierre

Yep.

04:39

Dave Almy

And your experience in technology also coincides with something else that's kind of was revolutionary in a lot of. A lot of ways. Right. So you begin working in tech, and then there's this other growth engine that just basically ends up powering the entire Internet economy. And this is advertising targeting. Right. These. These multi trillion dollar companies that are so familiar with us, to us today, really invented and kind of got their revenue started by offering a better mousetrap to brands that were trying to reach people in very targeted ways. So can you talk a little bit about ad targeting when that first got on your radar? Because it plays a huge role in what you do today.

05:19

Dave Almy

So, I mean, it's funny, it's like ubiquitous, but it's kind of one of those things that operates in the background of the Internet that I think people sort of understand but maybe don't. Yeah.

05:28

Adam Gouttierre

Yes, correct. Yeah. So I went going west, young man, and ended up in the Bay Area and then Seattle and worked at Yahoo. At Microsoft. Yeah. And it was also the time when Google's. Google is rising.

05:43

Dave Almy

Right.

05:45

Adam Gouttierre

And there are they were the leaders and are the leaders in terms of ad targeting. And the one thing about ad targeting should be like content targeting. It's the same equation. Get the right content to the right user at the right time.

06:00

Dave Almy

Right.

06:00

Adam Gouttierre

And, and actually respect that. And I think ad targeting in various forms does not respect that. And sometimes it's get as much ads to the wrong user at the wrong time and that's not good.

06:13

Dave Almy

Right. So it's a, it becomes a quality versus a quantity play.

06:17

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, it, well it wrong. It became a quantity and it veered away from quality. Right. And, and part of that is rooted in Google and performance marketing and click, click, click.

06:28

Dave Almy

Right then.

06:30

Adam Gouttierre

And I think, knock on wood, ad targeting is sort of how to say, going back to, I'd like to say where content is king versus where data is king and where the experience is respected and where you think about how you engage as a brand.

06:47

Dave Almy

Yeah. Or at least the marrying of content and data very well. So that it does get presented to and just sort of brings the brand along on the ride effectively.

06:59

Adam Gouttierre

Absolutely. And you know, with Apple and iOS and ATT sort of tracking transparency, that was an important evolution in this regard. And you'll see this, our users will see accept the reject cookies.

07:14

Dave Almy

Right.

07:14

Adam Gouttierre

That's another good evolution. It's like, you know what, get a relationship with your user, with your customer and then respectfully ask when, if they want to share data and then explain to them if you are sharing data, here's the data and here's how we'll use it to bring the right content to the right user at the right time. And I feel we're in a much better spot here relative to say five, seven years ago where it felt like ad networks and third party data and click, click was everywhere. We're not there yet, but we're evolving.

07:46

Dave Almy

Well, it's amazing too if you can have a proposition to a brand that says we're going to deliver your message in a way that's additive to an experience versus intrusive to an experience. And that kind of brings all those different pieces together, doesn't it?

07:58

Adam Gouttierre

You nailed it, Dave. And that's sort of, you know this well too. It's like it's kind of the excitement and blessedness of being in sports because there's a long track record of good innovations and how to bring a brand in the right way. Right. Where they're additive part of the journey and even inspiring to, to the experience.

08:18

Dave Almy

Well then let's again, this is what they call it in the business. Let's do a little segue here because you just mentioned sports. So you're working with the Microsofts and these big ad tech engineer working on that part of the business. When did Huddle first get on your radar and what kind of made your head turn in that direction and go oh, that's new, interesting, different, fun, creative, Slash, slash, slash, slash.

08:45

Adam Gouttierre

So I was living in Seattle, living at Microsoft, but still Nebraska roots. And as a reminder, the 6 degrees of separation in Nebraska is maybe like 2 degrees of separation which is to buy, benefit or my luck. And so I had someone close in Seattle, huge sports fan. We talked about Nebraska Sports, early investor in Huddle and said hey, you have to meet David Graf, the CEO and the founder of Huddle, who's still our CEO today. And so met him way long ago, almost 20 years ago. You could just tell, right, that a talented and a visionary person that's gonna have success, but also kind of understood already what the sports sort of Persona or where there was a gap in terms of athletic departments and coaches who needed that sort of what we call the easy button.

09:38

Dave Almy

Yeah.

09:39

Adam Gouttierre

And so that that connection, I was blown away and just stayed. So you guys hit it off right.

09:45

Dave Almy

Out of the gate like you was one of those people you just kind of connected with and you had the Nebraska background and.

09:51

Adam Gouttierre

Absolutely, absolutely. And it was sports too. Right. So it's kind of easy to connect in there, but you could tell that where David was going was next level stuff. And the part I've really grown to appreciate and I knew early on is it's a. Carl's a global company. We have offices in Barcelona, London, Australia. And all along he knew that he could build this company with its foundation, Nebraska which is exciting. Right.

10:17

Dave Almy

For engineering in its own right. It sort of decentralizes the. Where the controls mechanisms can us lie. Can, can you give. Because I as hard as it is for me to imagine because I've had kids who played high school sports. Can you give a high level overview of Huddle, you know, its sense of scale, which I think you just touched on, given that it has international presence and what the role that you're Currently playing for the company is.

10:41

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, you bet. I like to start with Huddle makes Moments account. And. And part of that is a coach, an athlete, key critical Personas. There's a three hour game to watch. Right. But we bring video and data together on a hardware and software platform and make moments that count. So those moments, sometimes I explain Huddle as a teaching tool. Right. You're looking for those moments to help you get better, help you prepare for the next game, help you think through who your opponent is, help you find key highlights to help you get recruited to go to the next level. And so those moments that count, that's part of what we do at Huddle. We wake up in the morning like, oh, that athlete just had their first dunk. Yeah, she had her first pass.

11:25

Dave Almy

Yeah.

11:26

Adam Gouttierre

And those are the moments that count. Part of the platform, the challenge opportunity is there's a lot of different Personas. The athlete, the coach. Yeah. The athletic director, the recruiter, the fan, the.

11:38

Dave Almy

The families.

11:39

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, absolutely.

11:40

Dave Almy

Yeah. You've got a lot of constituencies there. Yeah.

11:43

Adam Gouttierre

And also the brand. And so that's part of my job is ensuring we work with strategic brands. We get their voice of the customer, how they want to connect with fans and athletes and parents, and then also work with our product team to think through how do we evolve, how do we engage, how do we make content easy to create, easy to share, easy to experience. And if we do it right, we're bringing those brands in. Positive mullets for those Personas.

12:11

Dave Almy

12:57

Dave Almy

How does Huddle sort of get help, eliminate that, frustrate the frustration with. Around fragmentation.

13:03

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, it's a tricky one. And I appreciate you in this podcast because part of the, one of the challenges is Just raising awareness around high school sports and the ability to scale with it. Right. And I don't begrudge a strategic brand. The easy button is I'm gonna sponsor football. I'm gonna sponsor professional basketball. Right, of course. And so part of our challenge is raising awareness that. Yeah, actually, you can connect with 20,000 high schools. You can engage all year long. So that's child one. And I appreciate you. Let me help tell that story. Right. The other thing is. Oh, to your point, Dave, is like, they assume it's just a grainy placard in left field in next to Mom's Pizza. Right. That's not the case. And Mom's Pizza, though, nice shout out.

13:59

Dave Almy

For Mom's Pizza there.

14:00

Adam Gouttierre

I love Mom's Pizza. Right? Yes. And we. Yes. So one of the important things that we've invested in terms of the fan experience, particularly on live stream and highlight sharing, is also investing in the brand experience. And so we have a partnership with Dolby on our livestream player, and we're bringing ad experiences DL bar the double box watermarks that are the same ad experiences those brands can contemplate on Sunday football, Saturday football, Friday Night Lights, March Madness World Cup.

14:34

Dave Almy

It takes the activations and the channels that they're familiar with and just applies it to an entirely new market that had previously been kind of inaccessible to them.

14:42

Adam Gouttierre

You nailed it. Right. And showing the ad experiences is a way to bridge over. The other thing that's important is, like, a lot of these, the live stream, a lot of the games are experienced on ctv, and it's like, what a great way to connect with folks in a large screen in that environment. And then the next big important thing is to land is you hit on it. It's like, these are parents and grandparents who have even more passion than they might have around the New England Patriots, believe it or not. Right.

15:10

Dave Almy

Come on, now.

15:11

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, but it's a true. It's right. It's like when the person that they love and they care the most about is on that TV within or in that highlight.

15:23

Dave Almy

It's personalized in a way that is almost hard to imagine.

15:27

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, absolutely. And that's an awesome opportunity for a brand to participate smartly, to be part of that journey. And that journey, you know, can go on to high college, can potentially go on to pro. Yeah.

15:39

Dave Almy

It's interesting that Huddle's been around for about 20 years now, and that's kind of coincided with two things. We'll start with one, and we'll get to the other next. The first is the explosion in youth sports and the opportunities to play and the costs associated with playing and, you know, the, I don't want to say professionalization of youth sports, but certainly there's a lot of investment and attention being played to youth sports right now. And I've heard that market valued anywhere from 20 billion to $80 billion a year. It's gigantic. So I'm wondering, as that's grown and you've been with Hudl for a while, how have you seen Huddle change and adjust to accommodate that growth? What kind of interest? And I don't want to say pressure, but what, you know, how has that aligned with what's happening in youth sports with Huddle?

16:25

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, I love that question. And it is pressure. And it's pressure from our customer.

16:30

Dave Almy

Okay.

16:31

Adam Gouttierre

To evolve.

16:32

Dave Almy

Right.

16:32

Adam Gouttierre

And I think that's one of Huddle's secret sauce is our customer success and customer support team. And they are the voice of the customer. And so when the coach from Naggadocious, Texas is calling at five minutes before game time and it's like, I can't figure out how to get my Huddle to work. Right. It's like we have to solve it could be the Internet's down because there's a storm coming, right?

16:54

Dave Almy

Control, alt, delete, coach.

16:56

Adam Gouttierre

Yes, but what you would use the word use pressure. It's like our customers are telling us where we need to go next. And it's our job to hear them and listen to them. And we've heard them grow and we've grown with them. And I was thinking through the, some of our inflection points and we know we started as a football company which is an event based sport. Stop.

17:21

Dave Almy

Go.

17:21

Adam Gouttierre

Stop.

17:21

Dave Almy

Go.

17:22

Adam Gouttierre

And the basketball coaches started using it because they liked it. Right. But it was not more flow sport. That's a fl. So we need to evolve the platform to account for flow sports. Then there was the coaches saying, hey, I got to send all these DVDs of my athletes to the recruiters. Can you help us solve for. And we're like, yeah, we'll create highlight editing tools and we'll make it easier for athletes to create highlights so they can share to get recruited.

17:49

Dave Almy

Right.

17:51

Adam Gouttierre

Another. Another key inflection point is the cameras. And one of the things that the cameras did was more or less democratize sport within a high school.

18:03

Dave Almy

So stop there for just one second. So when you say the cameras, you're talking about physical hardware cameras that people that high schools buy from. Huddle lease from all the Above.

18:14

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah. It's part of their subscription. Is access to Huddle Focus cameras.

18:18

Dave Almy

Got it.

18:19

Adam Gouttierre

They're indoor, they're outdoor portable, and they're also multifunctional, like sideline behind home plate. And if you think about how and what's awesome about them, we can go a little deeper on. They have all machine learning on the edge. And so when we built these cameras and started rolling out, they all had AI on the edge for a variety of reasons. But back to why those cameras, the Huddle Focus cameras are critical to what I would call the democratization of sport. A lot of times, that varsity football team, they might have 17 assistant coaches, they might have 25 active parents. Someone's going to film that game, and someone's going to stat that game. That's great. But that freshman B volleyball team, no assistant coach. Maybe their parents are active or not. Right.

19:10

Adam Gouttierre

But now that their cameras in that gym, again, the easy button, just turn that camera on. If you want it to capture the film for those coaches and athletes, go for it. And so it really, truly democratized sport and also mirrored the growth of sport. So that high school volleyball team has as much access to their growth as the football varsity team.

19:32

Dave Almy

It really speaks to this idea. And some companies are exceptional at it and other companies not so exceptional at it. But it sounds like this is kind of baked into. Huddle is really listening to the customer and what their needs are and not assuming that all the answers live within the four walls of Huddle.

19:47

Adam Gouttierre

Oh, yeah, you nailed it. And again, when you use the word pressure kind of sheepishly. No, no, it's pressure.

19:52

Dave Almy

Right.

19:53

Adam Gouttierre

It's like we have to imagine and we do a huge retro postseason with our coaches and athletes to be ready for the next upcoming season, which is nine months from now. And. And our team, if we're not out and about on the game, watching how they use it, then that's a problem.

20:09

Dave Almy

Right.

20:10

Adam Gouttierre

And so that's how we live. We try to. The cool thing, too, is a lot of our product folks, a lot of us, we all were assistant coaches at some point or are. Right. So we're usually the first ones to dog food the platform.

20:23

Dave Almy

Yeah.

20:23

Adam Gouttierre

And like, oh, nope, can't release this. Right. We need to work on this, and this.

20:27

Dave Almy

Yeah, yeah. Right. So I spoke about the one. The second thing that happened. And so we had the growth of youth sports sort of this one big thing that's happened coincided with the launch of Huddle. The other one is. And it's kind of funny to think about that Huddle launched the same year that Facebook opened up to the public. Good, good research. Wow.

20:47

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, yeah.

20:47

Dave Almy

We don't care. You should see the people I've got working back there. Yeah. I mean, you know, they're, they're.

20:52

Adam Gouttierre

I got.

20:52

Dave Almy

The staff of interns at this place is really cranking out some good research.

20:55

Adam Gouttierre

They're doing.

20:56

Dave Almy

Yeah. But talk a little bit about how social media has changed this whole thing for you and media and Huddle and the way that the company has to approach because you are generating a stupendous associated with this and content that I think people are really desirous to share, both sort of professionally, like somebody trying to get recruited and, you know, people personally, like, hey, grandma, you got to see this clip kind of thing. So, so how has social media impacted the development priorities of Huddle from where you sit on the media side.

21:29

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah. Wow, that's a meaty one, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I like that.

21:34

Dave Almy

You got good research. I got a good meat here, Adam.

21:36

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, the. I think, I mean, one thing is there's close to 4 million games uploaded a Huddle every year and keep on growing. And those are not just 4 million stories. Those are 4 million stories times.

21:51

Dave Almy

Times 12 or 30 or whatever.

21:53

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, Right. And so there's millions and millions of important stories that some are super bowl esque, Odell Beckham, and some are, again, it's that first athletes, first five seconds that they've ever played high school sports that they're going to share with grandma. Right. So one way we think about social media is like how to make those stories live in those environments because our Personas want to not only share those stories on Huddle, but they want to share them to other environments. And it's kind of like what's old is new again. But when one of our first integrations was Facebook, because athletes at that time were using Facebook, they're not right now in those quaint old days. And so, you know, again, listening to our customer, how do we make these integrations make sense for the next important social media channel?

22:45

Adam Gouttierre

For those athletes, Twitter, Instagram, Snap and TikTok is evolution. And so you always. It's tricky because every three or four years something evolves. Right. But what's cool again is as we allow more Personas and make it easier for them to share, like parents, guess where they are. They're on Facebook.

23:07

Dave Almy

Right.

23:08

Adam Gouttierre

And so that adds more complexity, but more challenge and more opportunity where we have to continue and Invest in is allow storytelling creation easier and faster. That's what they're asking for. Get as close to real time as we can and to a degree while we like as an athlete to create. If Huddle can create for me, that's great. Right. And that's where our investments in AI and sort of highlight creation sort of helps create an easy button for the athletes then to share. Sorry that it's a meaty question, but you can go a lot of different ways.

23:45

Dave Almy

You know, the attention span economy demands that we keep these answers to about three minutes. So I think that was right about on the right on the nose end. Right on the nose.

23:52

Adam Gouttierre

But you bring up.

23:53

Dave Almy

You use the word storytelling a couple of times and it's such a critical component to all this. Right. Because certainly that's what brands are seeking in, in dramatic and powerful ways in which certainly sports, just given the way the sports has been growing has become a major catalyst to that. Right. So you mentioned make it like hitting the easy button is such an incredible point but like creating a powerful story is no small thing. So can you talk a little bit about how Huddle helps the athletes and the content creators with that storytelling so that it's more just than analyzing performance. Because it's clear that this is a huge part of the direction that Huddle is taking is bringing brands together with athletes to. To showcase these powerful stories. So what are your priorities in that regard?

24:44

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah. Is the Easy button for athletes and creators. Right.

24:50

Dave Almy

And.

24:50

Adam Gouttierre

But that's easier than said. And one of the thing that is a, an important investment for us right now is evolving our AI not just to be. It's. It's like to be blunt, if a quarterback throws a 50 yard touchdown highlight and we're going to pick that as a highlight for the quarterback and well done. Right?

25:13

Dave Almy

Yeah. Attaboy. Attaboy.

25:15

Adam Gouttierre

Right. But there are a lot of different highlights that don't show up as potentially a data point that. That easy.

25:21

Dave Almy

Yeah.

25:21

Adam Gouttierre

And you can have a soccer.

25:22

Dave Almy

The. The offensive guard may have made a great block that gave the guy the time to throw the ball, but that's not necessarily what everybody's looking at.

25:30

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah. You know, and it. And to that example that highlight is critical to that. That player, that parent and that inner circle. But even like a soccer game, you can look at the scores in 00 and no assists, no goals. But there were like eight nutmegs that were epic. Right. And so for our platform to know that is what we're putting challenge on us in terms of going beyond just rule based automatic highlights into more, let's just say subjective type of highlights. And so that's one key investment, but the other one is getting that highlight to the user at the right time.

26:12

Dave Almy

Right.

26:12

Adam Gouttierre

And they're back to your point about speed of market. And that's just not the athlete. The parents are asking for that. And that's why those cameras are so critical, because they're able to detect action and moments and then be able to get that to the user and then share them.

26:25

Dave Almy

Yeah, the speed to consumer is a fascinating thing. You and I both come from a generation where, you know, the idea of taking your film to the kiosk to have it developed and come back two weeks later to get your pictures is sort of this fascinating relic of a bygone idea. Whereas today, you know, I think of my own experience, like watching professional football games. I'm waiting for the YouTube NFL summary of the game I just watched and I'm like, come on man, it's been 30 minutes, why hasn't that posted yet? So the speed with which you have to work and deliver, like you said, Highlights of 4 million games a year, that's no small thing. And it really kind of demands a hard look at AI and how that can facilitate that process.

27:09

Dave Almy

So I mean, clearly AI is at the center of where the future of this thing goes. How is that being deployed now and how do you think that's going to impact your users?

27:18

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, that's a meaty question. Another one. Right, but you kind of hit on it too. It's like the NFL's got about 180, maybe 16 games over a weekend and then a huddles platform, maybe serve close to 7,000 games on a front end lights. Right. And so a lot of that is to empower that user in rural Texas or Chicago has the same experience across the platform. Again, one way we think about AI and we have for over five to seven years is how to make the processes and the workflows easier and easier for those coaches and athletes. So AI is already working. It's just working underneath for those workflows and making those moments count. That's part of what the platform does and uses AI. Just get it to them quicker.

28:12

Dave Almy

Right. So it's that background easy button. They don't even realize it's happening, but it will continue.

28:17

Adam Gouttierre

Well, one cool thing about we started using AI for our brands and when we started rolling out those cameras, we knew at some point the athletic director and the coach would say, hey, can you Share the game with fans. Right. And Covid kind of pushed that forward. And so which is great, exciting. And you can imagine, right, there's grandma's families, parents that A can't go to the game because they live in a different time zone. And. Or guess what? We learned that. That. Or we knew that. Freshman B volleyball game, It's Tuesdays at 4:00pm yeah, right. People are working.

28:53

Dave Almy

Right.

28:54

Adam Gouttierre

So we started to, if the school wanted to live stream, they could. But because those cameras had machine learning on the edge, we taught them to find dead moments. And so it knows where to find a timeout, where to find a quarter break, where it finds a halftime break. And that is a great opportunity to bring a brand in, to have a good positive experience across the country, across over, you know, close to 20,000 school experiences. So AI is not only important for the coach and the athlete Persona, but also for how we're using with our brain Personas.

29:30

Dave Almy

And I've heard you describe, when we're talking about brand integrations, I've heard you describe the Gatorade Fueling Greatness campaign, which struck me as like this really effective way to use the platform. And I'm wondering if you can describe that campaign and then comment on what makes brand content that will engage Huddle users. So if you're sitting down with brands and say, don't do this, same old, here's how you do this effectively for this audience. So two parter, like the Gatorade campaign and what learnings do you share then?

30:01

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, yeah. So thank you for highlighting that. It's super fun. It was part of their modern origins and they have a lot of great athletes. And three of their athletes they were showcasing were Caitlin Clark, Jason Tatum and Josh Allen, who all happened to be active Huddle users creating highlights in their high school days. And so this was during the basketball season as NBA playoffs also when WNBA was seeding up. So we had a huge amount of basketball engagement on the platform and but what we did is we showcased their highlights from high school with their professional highlights together and sort of what fueled greatness and why the Caitlin Clark one was the most watched branded piece of content on the platform.

30:46

Dave Almy

And Hard to imagine.

30:48

Adam Gouttierre

Hard to imagine, but not at all. But one of the key reasons and why it was so effective is there's a bunch of athletes that are creating highlights at that moment.

30:59

Dave Almy

Right.

30:59

Adam Gouttierre

And to see Caitlin and her highlights in the same format, in the same hustle. Right. The same momentum, the same engagement, the same excitement, you can't ask for something more authentic or more real or more tangible.

31:13

Dave Almy

They are right where she was.

31:14

Adam Gouttierre

They're right where she was. Right. And so that's. That was a unique one, but not unique in that all the future stars, they're on huddle right now. And it was kind of going through the NFL draft last year. Every one of those athletes all had a huddle highlight at some point except one.

31:35

Dave Almy

And that's amazing.

31:36

Adam Gouttierre

He was a punter from Australia. Right. And so we didn't have him.

31:41

Dave Almy

Guess why you opened up that office in Australia. You got to make sure you get the punt, get that next punter.

31:48

Adam Gouttierre

But one of the lessons for other brands is ideate with us. Right. And such part of our team does. And so because we sit on 30 million stories a year, there's a lot of stories that we can bring to bear. Not necessarily from a. Doesn't have to be a professional athlete that's on your roster, but there are stories. Big man touchdowns like you mentioned. Right. But just also stories about teams and communities. Then Gatorade asked us. That's one of the things that I feel like has changed too is like not only connect, not only identify, but identify, connect. And you know, my greater like, hey, can you, can we sponsor some teams that. With. With great stories? And we did a lacrosse team. I think you're a lacrosse fan that was served an underserved who's doing the research now?

32:40

Dave Almy

Gutierre.

32:46

Adam Gouttierre

I'm my own intern, by the way.

32:49

Dave Almy

Yeah, we're having an intern showdown here on the research capabilities.

32:53

Adam Gouttierre

But there was a great underserved lacrosse team that just started and made it to the state finals. Right. That's a great story.

33:00

Dave Almy

Yeah, it's great.

33:01

Adam Gouttierre

And so there's so many of those stories to bring to bear that a brand can participate in.

33:07

Dave Almy

So as we wrap up, Adam, I'm interested in your thoughts on volume from the perspective that like you've talked about. There's 4 million games each game has 30 people playing in it or whatever. The average number of a team is so much content to wade through and consider. And in this day where nil is certainly, you know, college athletes are getting paid. Younger athletes are, you know, now sort of in the. Not in the crosshairs, but certainly are going to have opportunities to be able to generate that. And so being. Having a brand presence and being able to tell their own stories is incred. Incredibly important. What advice do you have for them, the. The creators for if you want to engage with brands and you think about how you're going to use your content effectively.

34:01

Dave Almy

I'm wondering if there's lessons that you've seen that I'll certainly have them for brands, but I'm wondering about if there's a thinking that you have as we get ready to wrap for the creators themselves.

34:12

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, there's beauty Question one. One thing we've done, it's like being close to our creators is critical. Right. And so the things about how to make the tools better, about to make things, when you roll that up, it's how do you help us be storytellers? And what has evolved too is how do I, how do you help me build my brand? Right. And it one and one. Sometimes those are equal. Sometimes those have a different pivot. And a lot of times we think about those folks that go into college, like, how did the Huddle highlights, how did our storytelling help you to bring followers in? So when you show up on campus, sometimes before you show up on campus, how should you have a brand to help monetize to pay for college and stuff like that?

35:05

Adam Gouttierre

We started this year an athlete creators program which is identified 500 of the top athletes across all sports, all genders, and to sort of get more even deep on what they need as content creators and what those challenge opportunities that they see that we need to build for. But it's brand building and it's storytelling and sometimes there's a one and the same, sometimes they diverge.

35:34

Dave Almy

It's brave new world. And there's a lot of content being created and Huddle is right at the center of it. Adam Gutierrez, the vice president of media at Huddle. Adam, thanks for spending the time, but before I let you go, I'm going to put you in the infamous Lightning Round. I have a series of questions for you. Oh, yeah, no, the raised eyebrows are exactly what you should have right now. This is, this is the aptly named Lightning Round because it can be shocking, quite frankly, what's about. What's about to happen. So, Adam Goodyear, are you ready for the lightning?

35:59

Adam Gouttierre

Nervous. I'm nervous, but I agreed. Right. So you're here. There's no duck in it.

36:04

Dave Almy

So I mean, here we it.

36:06

Adam Gouttierre

All right.

36:06

Dave Almy

You attended the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. What was the most number of vodka shots you did in a single evening?

36:16

Adam Gouttierre

It was probably 12. And it was with a grandma, a babushka, and she had 15. I'm sure I lost.

36:23

Dave Almy

I'm sure she destroyed you.

36:25

Adam Gouttierre

She killed me.

36:27

Dave Almy

Those babushkas, that's Just a steer clear.

36:30

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah. We talked about.

36:31

Dave Almy

You started in politics. You were a senate aide for Nebraska's Bob Harry. Who threw the best parties when you lived in D.C. at the time.

36:39

Adam Gouttierre

Is it Strom Thurman?

36:43

Dave Almy

That was not on my bingo card right there.

36:45

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, everyone did. Because when you were a starving legislative aide.

36:50

Dave Almy

Yes.

36:51

Adam Gouttierre

You would take free food and free beer from anyone. Anyone who threw an U threw a party.

36:57

Dave Almy

So it's all of the above. Is the answer to that question yes. All right. For high school, you attended Creighton Prep, which is a powerhouse for Nebraska State athletics. So pop quiz for you. The under over on the number of state high school championships for football won by Creighton Prep is 25. Are you taking the under or the over?

37:14

Adam Gouttierre

Oh, man. As a little side note, when I was there, we won the state championship all four years, and I contributed nothing to that spirit, you know?

37:21

Dave Almy

You contributed the same spirit.

37:23

Adam Gouttierre

Oh, you're in a jinx. I'm gonna say under.

37:27

Dave Almy

Somewhere a blue jay is crying. It's 27. So it was the over. It was the over. Yeah. Sorry.

37:32

Adam Gouttierre

All right, one more Creighton Prep question.

37:34

Dave Almy

Then I'll let you go. Okay. In an interview with Creighton Prep, you finally recall telling jokes in Latin with Father Mark Neiman and Mr. Mark Hayes. Can you share one of those Latin jokes with us right now?

37:45

Adam Gouttierre

It's crazy. Yeah, it is. Simper UBI sub ubi. And let me. Let me give you that joke to you always.

37:55

Dave Almy

Always.

37:56

Adam Gouttierre

Where?

37:58

Dave Almy

Under.

37:59

Adam Gouttierre

Where?

38:01

Dave Almy

A classic Creighton Latin joke from Adam Gutierre, the vice president of media for a Huddle. Adam. Thanks, Dave.

38:08

Adam Gouttierre

I gotta, I gotta. I got a question for you. Shoot, shoot. I've created my own Lightning round question for you if you're ready.

38:14

Dave Almy

Dog never had the turned tables on me.

38:18

Adam Gouttierre

Are you ready?

38:18

Dave Almy

I'm ready.

38:19

Adam Gouttierre

Hopefully it'll be shocking. When you were 13 years old, what was your favorite team spot?

38:25

Dave Almy

The Boston Red Sox.

38:27

Adam Gouttierre

What was the first concert you attended to?

38:29

Dave Almy

Peter Tosh. Wow.

38:32

Adam Gouttierre

Bucket list. Sporting event or that you want to go to or maybe you've already achieved?

38:36

Dave Almy

I want to really go to a Premier League soccer event in England. I've been to a lot. Just. Nature of the business that we're in, obviously, but that still escapes me. So Premier League Soccer, if anybody's listening and you get, you know, anybody listening wants to bring tickets, you know, I can have a podcast host would be happy to take them.

38:54

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah. If you do the next podcast in our London office, I think that there could Be some good things happening there.

38:59

Dave Almy

There we go. Absolutely.

39:01

Adam Gouttierre

Socks up or socks down when you were a youth athlete?

39:05

Dave Almy

Socks down. I mean, this was the 80s, so we actually sometimes just rolled them down, I believe was. I mean, to go really get esoteric.

39:16

Adam Gouttierre

Favorite 70s sitcom.

39:20

Dave Almy

Morgan Mindy. That's a deep cut right there.

39:24

Adam Gouttierre

There's a deep cup and then the last one. Your favorite Boston team?

39:29

Dave Almy

Come on. It's like asking me which is my favorite kid. I mean, that's shocking. You can't do that. I love them all equally. I just love, you know, these, you know, you. You love the Red Sox because they struggled right when I was a kid, but you now, they're, they're more successful now. I just love them in a different way. So they all. Adam, that's a terrible lightning round question because it's unanswerable. You know, you still. Somewhere you need to check your interns.

39:57

Adam Gouttierre

Inquiring minds want to know.

39:58

Dave Almy

Okay, well, I understand. Wow.

40:00

Adam Gouttierre

The.

40:01

Dave Almy

The lighting round got turned back on me. Oh, hey, man, thanks for the time. Thanks for, thanks for the opportunity to showcase a little bit about being a podcast, though. I appreciate that.

40:10

Adam Gouttierre

Yeah, no, thanks for this fun. As you said, thanks for letting. Let me participate. Hopefully we did all right.