Sloane Kelley, USTA Managing Director of Content and Creative Services - a podcast by Brian Clapp - Work in Sports

Hey everybody, I’m Brian Clapp VP of content and engaged learning with workinsports.com and this is the Work In Sports podcast…August 16th 1954Sports Illustrated the magazine launches. In their first issue their most high profile article is titled “The Golden Age is Now”“FOR WORLD-WIDE INTEREST, FOR WIDESPREAD PARTICIPATION, FOR SHATTERED RECORDS, FOR THRILLING TRIUMPHS OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT, THIS IS THE GREATEST SPORTS ERA IN HISTORY”The imagery with the article is of a golfer, head down putting, but the photography isn’t strong enough to tell if it is someone famous. There is a gallery, maybe 30 people, and there is a man in a pink suit is standing just off the green but separate from the crowd...likely the Jim Nantz of the time. I’m not a huge nostalgia guy, but I found myself drawn to the article. I needed to know why they claimed this was the golden era -- what stood out to them in this time to say “the time for sports is now!”Reading further there were some interesting data points shared -- not exactly Wins Above Replacement type data...but interesting for perspective sake. Get this… in their argument for it being the golden era of sports they cite:Tens of thousands of pin boys are kept leaping by 20 million bowlers and, quite properly, the 60,000 bowling alleys around the country include one in the basement of the White House. The favorite outdoor sport is fishing. Last year 17,652,478 citizens took out fishing licenses and eight million more fished where licenses either were not needed (along the coasts) or were not likely to be asked for. Hunting licenses totaled 14,832,779.Three million Americans go skiing every winter, A half-million own sailboats, There are five million golfers There is softball to be played (the Amateur Softball Association of America claims a million players) and basketball is a year-round sport and topic No. 1 in thousands of U.S. towns. There are horseshoes to be pitched in a million back yards and croquet balls to be tapped by belligerent believers who insist that it is the only worth-while game in the world.Isn’t this amazing?70 years ago the sports world was afire with horseshoes and bowling! No wonder your grandparents are scared to death of twitter, their golden era was spent fishing. It’s not exactly groundbreaking to share that the world has changed. It’s not exactly revolutionary to say social media, streaming, a dedicated sports channel for just about everything, famous athletes being accessible and sharing their own story -- has changed our relationship with sports. But the job of keeping up with all of this sure has changed.  Bob Ryan the quintessential sports writer, formerly of the Boston Globe and one of my personal idols, tells how when he covered the Celtics in the 1970’s he was embedded with the team, went out for drinks with them, knew their wives...and had to maybe write 3-5 stories a week. Now, content is different, the audience’s appetite is insatiable. There is social, there are broadcast hits, there is constant analysis and debate, there are writing demands… and then, there is everything around the corner... Are we developing virtual reality? Do we need to make content specific for Alexa? Should we launch a podcast? Everything needs a strategy and vision - or in this content world - there is chaos. There is no reactionary process -- everything has to be proactive. Which makes the job done by today’s guest all the more impressive. Sloane Kelley is the United States Tennis Associations Managing Director of Content and Creative Services … and prior to that she was the VP of Content with the PGA Tour. She knows how to stand out in today’s golden era of sports, which is a little different than the one in the 50’s. Here’s Sloane Kelley… Questions for Sloane Kelley,

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