Scott Doyne: Founder, Doyne Services - Sports Business Conversations

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Scott Doyne: Founder, Doyne Services

Episode 62 • 17th December 2024 • Sports Business Conversations • ADC Partners

00:03

Scott Doyne

Hi, this is Scott Doyne with Doyne Career Services, and I'm going 1 on 1 with ADC Partners.

00:25

Dave Almy

Hey, this is Dave Allen of ADC Partners, and thanks for dropping by this episode of the Sports Business Conversations podcast. Really appreciate you being here. If you enjoy the show, go ahead and prove it by leaving a comment or a rating. Heck, why not leave both? But let's start by just stating the obvious, right? There are a lot of people out there who want to work in sports. And my guest in this episode, Scott Doyne of Doyne Services, was one of those guys. And he pulled it off, did all the things he needed to do, right? He worked his tail off, got a job with Turner Sports to work on nascar, and then the NBA hooked into digital media when it was really just starting to take off and doing all the things that make working in sports sound pretty fun, right?

01:08

Dave Almy

You know, going to games, playing at cool golf courses. You know, the drill. Pretty awesome, right? Well, it was right up until the time that it wasn't. See, right about the time that Scott was getting ready to turn 50, doubt started to creep in. He looked around, and despite all he'd accomplished, felt that something was just off. So he did something that scares the absolute bejeebers out of most people. He left his job to start all over again. Scott now provides career counseling services to people who may be feeling the same way he once did. He even wrote a book about it, the Midlife Career Crisis, which is available on Amazon. We talk about the book, his career in sports, and what it's like to stand on the precipice of what can only be called monumental change.

02:01

Dave Almy

time, right? And it was early: 2000

02:51

Scott Doyne

Yeah, you're so right. Earlier in my career, I was in production, but then I went back to business school. I wanted to raise my ceiling on my future career. And while I was there, I took a unpaid summer internship within Turner Broadcasting. It was part of cnn. I got my foot in the door.

03:09

Dave Almy

The classic move.

03:10

Scott Doyne

Yeah. Found the sports team as fast as I could and worked my way into a part time job on NASCAR.com as I was finishing up my MBA.

03:20

Dave Almy

That's how it all started to unfold. And so had you had an interest in the web? Was like digital sort of something that had called to you? Or was this part of like your business school experience where people were starting to see how this was transforming? Well, everything I was very interested, Huge.

03:37

Scott Doyne

Sports fan, majored in sports management, worked in sports tv, you know, anything I could get my hands, eyes or ears on related to sports fandom. I think the technology part more came from growing up around computers in my house. And so there was an inkling.

03:54

Dave Almy

Did you always have one in the house? Were you the kid who had the computer?

03:57

Scott Doyne

Yeah, we had the Apple 2+ classic. You know, even I remember going to children's museums. I just always loved pressing buttons.

04:06

Dave Almy

Yeah.

04:06

Scott Doyne

And you know, I probably broke some stuff along the way, but I was always.

04:10

Dave Almy

You and I had similar households.

04:12

Scott Doyne

Yeah. So I, I remember even going into business school.

04:17

Dave Almy

Yeah.

04:17

Scott Doyne

Playing around with some of the web that was there, you know, undergrad, you know, 95, 96. There was some stuff it just wasn't like you said, it wasn't broadband. So as I got into it, that really was the game changer. Streaming audio was the first product we had for NASCAR.com and then eventually streaming graphics and streaming video. And so it was just riding the waves.

04:41

Dave Almy

Was this an element of, okay, here's the intern, he's younger, he understands technology like now. Just, just give it to the intern.

04:48

Scott Doyne

Oh man, I had the best bosses, you know, from the very beginning. A guy that had worked at Viant and a lot of the interactive consulting stuff, a guy that had been at Turner Sports. And we're launching, you know, these digital properties in partnership with the leagues. Right. That's where the assets came from. But the leagues didn't quite know what to do with it or how to invest. And so as a media company, you know, CNN.com was in the company. And so the footprint of the technology and the capabilities was there. And were empowered with making a business out of digital sports. And the leagues loved the innovation. You know, it was very sort of PR heavy early on, but we started finding some business models.

05:31

Scott Doyne

We were building subscription products, we had ad supported products, we had a, you know, wallpapers and ringtones, if you remember those on phones.

05:38

Dave Almy

Yeah. I mean, it's. It was kind of a crazy time, particularly in those early days, because nobody knew what they didn't know. Right. I mean, it was, what can this be? What can it do? And you feel like Turner and NASCAR kind of gave you, in those early days, the flexibility to go out and say, try it out. Like, go.

05:53

Scott Doyne

That was beautiful. You know, as much as you didn't know what would be right, nobody could say you were wrong until you just put some stuff out there. And whether it was the leagues or, you know, the company that Ted built, innovation was in the blood. And so, yeah, were. We were definitely motivated. We were led by people that wanted to try crazy stuff. And then, you know, it wasn't like were in that big data era yet, but we would. We would look at web metrics and see what was performing right, See where.

06:22

Dave Almy

You were getting clicks, see which it was getting downloaded. Sort of that first use of data.

06:26

Scott Doyne

Analytics, it was very early product management, direct to consumer, over the top, before any of those terms even existed.

06:33

Dave Almy

It sounds like you were given the freedom and flexibility to really try to tease out what worked in the web, what people wanted from digital experiences. And then you kind of. You enter into this opportunity where Turner has a joint venture with the NBA and to manage their digital strategy amongst some other things that you were doing. The NBA is, I think it's fair to say, like, widely regarded as being amongst the most innovative of the leagues. So, you know, that experience and working with the NBA sounds like you went with NASCAR and there was some opportunity to sort of throw the doors open. Was that on steroids with the NBA or because the NBA was more established? How did that. How did their approach sort of impact you and sort of meet or not meet your expectations in working with that league?

07:20

Scott Doyne

Yeah, it was phenomenal. They were different from each other, but what they had in common was a willingness to be innovative fans of the sport that were out there. And, you know, sports fans tend to adopt technology on the early side, so they're both ripe for opportunity. What was different about the NBA is, you know, whether it was David Sterner, Adam Silver, or a partner we had, like Melissa Brenner, like, they were so early into things like social. Adam Silver and Turner developed NBA Digital NBA TV together. It was actually called NBA.com TV at the very beginning.

07:52

Dave Almy

Yeah, that's catchy.

07:53

Scott Doyne

Just very early. Yeah. See how long that lasted. Very early experimentation, lots of fun. But the. The partnership with the NBA it was like this fun challenge, right? Lots of smart people there. You probably know like I was never the smartest person in that room and so I like welcome to my world man.

08:14

Dave Almy

Never ever the smartest. I'm just, was still waiting for the.

08:17

Scott Doyne

Day and you know, it was like iron, sharpen iron. So let's challenge each other.

08:23

Dave Almy

Yeah, you got to be on your game when you're in the room with that bunch of people.

08:26

Scott Doyne

And I love that it was challenging, but I think that's part of what made it fun and also created those consumer experiences and business models that eventually other leagues caught onto.

08:38

Dave Almy

So you're at this really kind of interesting place. Like you're building this portfolio of expertise in a. To call it emerging. I mean it was headed merged but it was so I mean people forget how transformational that period of time where you were doing these things like smartphones were just coming online like you said, social media was just coming online. It was this transformational time. And you had this opportunity to work with the NBA which is like we talked about, very innovative. And then you start, you go back to Turner, sort of refocus on some of their digital properties like Bleacher Report, right. Some big names. You've been there since the beginning, right. So there's this sense of wow, you're going to be this go to person in digital media. You seem to be establishing that foundation.

09:31

Dave Almy

But I think there's this, wait a minute point in your life. So let's tease that out a little bit. So you're on this trajectory but you start to have thoughts about what am I doing here? How does this, how did that first start to exhibit itself for you?

09:52

Scott Doyne

I think pretty subconscious at the beginning. Meaning, you know, I had seven years with NASCAR.com, seven years on NBA Digital and then I was moved into a company wide position. The time was Turner product strategy. So because I did have that innate, you know, early experience with direct to consumer, what is it, you know, as a company we should be doing on cartoon digital or CNN or TNT or Turner Classic Movie.

10:18

Dave Almy

So you're kind of a go to guy in this regard. You were, you had the expertise, built.

10:22

Scott Doyne

An internal consulting team and helped with that for about a year and a half is a hell of a challenge. I had not worked outside of sports really and there's different cultures, different sensibilities, different consumer needs, new product, technology. So really, you know, a little bit thrown into the deep end, which I think is fine. Right. Find out where your ceiling is. I think that Challenged me in new ways. And then I was brought back into Turner Sports to run research and analytics. That was not a specialty for me. And so where it really pushed me was on the management side, the culture change, the transformation. And that, I think, started to be more of a motivator for me. Investing in my team, seeing them succeed, seeing them grow, their skill sets. That was the percolation of my change.

11:10

Scott Doyne

And by the way,: 2020

11:14

Dave Almy

What I'm trying to remember what.

11:15

Scott Doyne

There was something right.

11:16

Dave Almy

What happened: 2020

11:20

Scott Doyne

Yeah, were alone, a lot in our heads. Introspection, health crises with family members. And so that introspection led me to thinking about legacy and purpose.

11:33

Dave Almy

Yeah.

11:34

Scott Doyne

In that, you know, as I was approaching 50, as I was getting ready for empty nest in my house, I think all that coincided with wanting something more. And it sounds kind of ridiculous to me that I worked in sports and what could better? But I also had gotten to do it all. I went to 10 NBA All Star weekends, 30 plus NASCAR races, golfed on some amazing courses. I'd sort of done that part. And what was getting me going in the mornings was thinking about how I could lift up my team.

12:07

Dave Almy

It wasn't so much that sports itself, you didn't like, tire of sports per se, or working in sports or working in the vertical of digital, but it was more along the lines of, you sounds like you had your first real opportunity to engage with people and manage them directly and see them benefit from success and grow as people.

12:29

Scott Doyne

Is that.

12:29

Dave Almy

Was that the catalyst? And I think so. One of those things that leaned you back in your chair?

12:34

Scott Doyne

I think so. Even during the pandemic, you know, we're all virtual. And I began to embrace my strength as an empathetic leader. And I had a boss that was very similar and sort of understood look for all of us to sort of get through this, you know, professionally and personally, it really became obvious that was something that was natural for me.

12:57

Dave Almy

Right.

12:57

Scott Doyne

And so I embraced that style. And I think that led me to want to empower as many of my staff as possible. I managed 50, 60 people, pretty large budget people with different skill sets in different cities on different properties. It was. It was an awesome management challenge, and I loved that part of it. But it wasn't so much about the clicks. It wasn't so much about the viewership or even the business results. At some level, I got a high off of seeing my staff succeed.

13:29

Dave Almy

So it was really taking that great experience that endorphin rush of seeing them succeed, but also the pandemic and being up in headspace transition of, you know, empty nests sort of staring that in the face. Sounds like there was a lot of inputs coming at you that led you to decision to make a change. So with that sort of formulating for you, how did you take those initial steps are big ones. Right. Particularly when you're coming out of a established career. So talk about that first step, how that led you to the point where you start coaching people on making those first steps.

14:19

Scott Doyne

Initially it was just what I call the wake up call. And I do write about this in the book because I want to be transparent. I had a colleague who was laid off that the cable industry was clearly threatened. We had been bought by AT&T, sold by AT&T, bought by Discovery. Right. Going through a lot of change. And so there were rounds of layoffs and somebody that I thought was bulletproof got let go. And I was like, oh, it's going to be me someday.

14:46

Dave Almy

Yeah.

14:47

Scott Doyne

And so that was important, right? The, the awareness. And then beyond that, it was, okay, let me, you know, on the side, journal a little bit, think a little bit, talk to some mentors, just be open minded about what I might want to do next. So that I think that the wake up call is important because that's like the lightning bolt. But then choosing to open my mind to new and different possibilities, that opened the door for the next lightning bolt.

15:16

Dave Almy

Yeah, the alarm has to, you know, the alarm goes off every morning. You still have to get out of bed. Right. So that's the moment where you felt like, okay, this is what it's going to be. Was it fully formed for you when you made that decision? It's like, this is what I'm going to do or did. Yeah, you made a sort of a seamless transition.

15:34

Scott Doyne

You know, I, I am pretty methodical when it comes to everything. I think that's what made me a good product manager. And I've used those tools and skills, you know, as an entrepreneur. But it was more that exploration, the journaling. What happened was I ended up going to an executive coach and I had sent employees to coaches before and they all came back really happy and better for it. I just hadn't myself. And so when I had that first session, I was like, oh, that was something and I think I can do it. So that was the inclination that maybe this is one of those options. And so I raised my hand to get some training funded still in my job layoff hadn't happened. I did some research to figure, okay, if I wanted to do this, what does that look like?

16:22

Scott Doyne

So my baby steps were, let me just get into some training, invest some time in this. And then it was like, every step of the way, I loved it more and more.

16:32

Dave Almy

Oh, so it really was like almost viral for you. The more you dipped into it, the greater the experience became.

16:38

Scott Doyne

Exactly. And it still is. I mean, even today, like every day it's like, oh, my God, this is amazing.

16:45

Dave Almy

Did your history I just heard you talk about, like product management was an effective tool, like that background. But I'm wondering if there's other ways that your history in sports, business and digital products kind of prepared you for this transition into focusing on career coaching for other people. Is there something special about those markets that sort of gave you foundation?

17:11

Scott Doyne

I think there's a functional part and then an emotional part. The functional part that I ran businesses for Turner Sports. I knew what the annual cycle looked like to go from zero to one on a property. I had experts around me in marketing and creative and legal and all that. So that's different as an entrepreneur. But the structure of how to do the research, to have a hypothesis, launch something, you know, as an mvp, get some feedback, iterate on that as more data comes in. All that was pretty skill based and I had the room to do that many times in my career. So doing that for myself as a business really does feel natural. I think I can run just about any business. That's the functional part. The emotional part is tapping into that empathetic leadership, doing the disc assessment.

18:00

Scott Doyne

What sort of leader am I? And I've just always been supportive and empathetic and want the best for others. I was actually a swim coach in high school. So going back to like the coaching theme, I think it was always in me. I just never saw it as like, oh, this could be like the full time thing. Until that moment happened. It was like, oh, I actually have a chance here to really pivot. And pivoting away from media made some sense from a strategic business standpoint. And I just sort of found the thing.

18:34

Dave Almy

So you start Doyne Services Career Consulting. Right. And you just released a book, the Midlife Career Crisis, which dives into your own experience about this career moment and some other examples of other people who've gone through transitions of their own. But I'm wondering, as you took the time to write the book, is there anything that you picked up on about your own career transition that was new to you? What did you Learn through that process of writing.

19:09

Scott Doyne

Yeah, it really is revealing. It's cathartic. I've always liked writing. I was in the production side of the business early on, so regaining my love of storytelling, it was really through LinkedIn for a while. And as I got sort of my Jones back, it was like, let me think about something longer. Found the right idea. So I did learn. I still love storytelling, but even more so thinking through my transition, which clearly I didn't think of as like, oh, here are the four stages I'm currently going through, little bits and pieces. What I wanted to do in the book was deconstruct that. And while I do think there's still something magical about finding the thing, I think there's a way to sort of give yourself that chance.

19:59

Scott Doyne

You know, the realization, the exploration, then articulating what that hypothesis might be and then you're, you know, sort of going to market. And whether it's a career transition towards entrepreneurship or your job search, it started to feel like a framework that other people might benefit from that maybe don't have time or funds for one one career coaching. But this is my effort to democratize some of the frameworks so there might be a self service option for people.

20:31

Dave Almy

I suppose that's another form where a natural inclination towards empathy probably provides benefit. Right. I want to be able to provide you with at least a starter set of tools so that if you're experiencing that, here's something that at least to work off. Here's, here's absolutely, here's what I've learned. Take a look at this and see what you think and do you feel like that was sort of incumbent upon you as an empathetic leader to include in that process?

20:59

Scott Doyne

I think it's more subconscious than that at this point, but I, I look back and think about the different stages of my career and you know, when I was in production or journalism, you know, it's very question based. When I was running a research department, it's very question based. And as a coach, I ask people, you know, what do you want to do and how will you get there?

21:21

Dave Almy

Kind of sounds like being a podcast host. I mean the question, getting some synergies here.

21:28

Scott Doyne

I think I'm naturally curious. I learned to read the tea leaves and the data and then incorporate that back into not only my own business, but helping others see the tea leaves in a way that motivates them towards a realistic action plan that they've developed. Right I'm there as a partner, but they have to believe in it. And that's, you know, that's a partnership.

21:54

Dave Almy

So the book, again, is the Midlife Career Crisis. And you've launched this book on your 50th birthday, which I suppose is a midlife demarcation point. It's kind of hard to get that one up every once in a while. But I'm wondering, you spend the first part of the book also talking about the definition of midlife and what that means. Can you tease that out a little bit and how that. Because people, I think, experience that much more differently. Like, am I too early for a midlife crisis? Did it happen way too late? How did you talk about that? A little bit. And just offering that as a how to start standpoint, it's really personal.

22:30

Scott Doyne

And yes, there are scientific ways to deduce, you know, average lifespan, life expectancy. You can look at life stages, you can look at health. I think all those are useful, but it ends up being more personal than that. There's one person I quote, I think three times in the book is Craig Sager. And if people listening are sports fans, they remember Craig and his paisley suits. And he had this awesome speech at the SB Awards when he won the Jimmy B Award. And, you know, he was battling cancer and so courageous. And in that speech he said, time is simply how we live our lives. And I think that's. That's what I end up answering in terms of when is midlife? It's not about a number because tomorrow's not promised.

23:20

Scott Doyne

And if you're trying to figure out demarcations of quarter, mid, half, you know, you're on the back nine, whatever those things are. Yes, those are traditional and round numbers might raise flags where you sort of feel that urgency. But I think the book ends up being a little more carpe diem than I even expected. I had this awesome career, and I'm so thankful and so, you know, lucky that if people can experience a portion of the fulfillment that I had, I just want them to give that a chance.

23:54

Dave Almy

For people who are listening now, maybe this is striking a chord with some folks who are not unsettled, but maybe feeling that tickle of uncertainty or starting to question what they're doing, I'm wondering if you have advice or at least initial advice for them, how can they begin to conform front something which by any definition can be really scary. Right? Like, I've sort of done this time to work on creating this career, and now I'm like, eh, did I make the right decision. What's, what's that advice that you have for them?

24:33

Scott Doyne

Yeah, I think on the surface, one step at a time is my advice. You don't have to figure it all out at once. But if you can be open minded. Right. You've had the light bulb go off. What does exploration look for you that maybe has an action bias. Right. What, what do you want to try next? And that journaling might be get an idea that you can do as a side hustle or just talk to somebody about maybe somebody wants to go into partnership with you. You don't know until you start talking about that. But I'll give you one other fundamental answer because it scares a lot of people, especially if they're thinking about voluntary, you know, departure from a company.

25:15

Scott Doyne

It's health insurance and people, you know, especially if they have families, that's very real and scary to not be without that net. And so I would encourage people to just do the research. Right. What might that cost you? What does COBRA actually look like? What does the marketplace look like? What's an insurance broker? If you spend an hour looking into that, it doesn't mean it's going to be free. It might not even be cheap. But at least you'll know a number. And for me, knowing that number took some fear away.

25:51

Dave Almy

It makes it much more practical. Right. It gives, it's much more goal oriented. If you know that this is the number, then here's how you can begin to approach the challenge.

25:59

Scott Doyne

Yeah, not knowing is scary. It really is. And I empathize with people that have that. But it's just one step. I think practically, if you just know that number and have an idea of, you know, maybe a rainy day fund or the options you might have, you know, contingency planning for me is always important.

26:18

Dave Almy

Okay. My guest is Scott Doyne. He is of Doyne Services, career counseling coach. He has just written the book the Midlife Career Crisis. Scott, thanks for joining me today. Before I let you go though, I've got to put you in the lightning round. Oh, yeah. I mean, that was. That's the appropriate response.

26:37

Scott Doyne

Here we go.

26:38

Dave Almy

Like we talked about the fear of making a career choice, this is the fear of being entered into the landing round. So here we go. Okay. The lightning round with Scott Doyne. In the preface of the book, you indicate that the idea for the book came from listening to a podcast. I'm wondering what ideas have come to you while being on this one.

26:57

Scott Doyne

Oh, boy. The more we talk about it, put other people in the spotlight. Let them share their stories. I think when it comes to the midlife career crisis, if we actually had people somehow in a community that contributed their success stories, you know, my story is just one and it might not resonate with everybody, but if other people's stories are out there, maybe one of them connects with those people that are a little scared and they see like, oh, actually, I see myself in that person. I can do it.

27:32

Dave Almy

So you're basically talking about the career change podcast. For those of you who are scribbling quickly, act fast, because Scott is also doing so as we speak. Okay, next question. As a career coach, when is it appropriate to blow your whistle at the person you are coaching?

27:51

Scott Doyne

Never.

27:52

Dave Almy

Never?

27:53

Scott Doyne

Never.

27:53

Dave Almy

No. And are you a lanyard guy or are you like a whistle over the fingers guy?

27:58

Scott Doyne

I take a deep breath and ask a good question.

28:04

Dave Almy

All right, so no whistles. Okay, fine, no whistles. You did undergrad at the University of Michigan. And as we talked about, the book has a number of quotes from people. What would it have taken you to have included a quote from former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel in the book?

28:20

Scott Doyne

Never.

28:22

Dave Almy

Never. Not even like these guys. Like, it's solid gold.

28:25

Scott Doyne

It would have to be about a sweater vest. I'm not quite sure what that would entail.

28:31

Dave Almy

Sweater vest as a part of the career change. You live in Atlanta and like we just discussed, you're a Michigan Wolverines fan. But you know, the Georgia Bulldogs are going through a pretty consequential streak of success as a Wolverine fan. What are your coping mechanisms?

28:49

Scott Doyne

I have a son at the University of Georgia, so I am happy. I'm happy when he's happy. If they play each other, maybe we don't talk that day.

28:57

Dave Almy

Is that a house divided?

29:00

Scott Doyne

You know, a bit. A bit now, but they don't come against each other very often. And we won't talk about the Orange Bowl a couple years ago.

29:07

Dave Almy

Okay, we almost scratched that one, right? Scott Doyne, thanks for joining me today.

29:11

Scott Doyne

Thanks, Dave.