Leading Digital Innovation in Sports – Andrew Yaffe, Dude Perfect

Sean Callanan (00:01.413)
Very happy to welcome Andrew Yaffe. He's the CEO of Dude Perfect. You can find them on every social channel, but mainly on YouTube is where I subscribe to them. Andrew, welcome to the podcast.

Andrew Yaffe (00:12.718)
Thanks so much for having me, Sean.

Sean Callanan (00:15.129)
Not a problem at all. I always ask people at the start of interviews how they got their start in the world of sports. What about yourself? What was your first foray into the world of sports business?

Andrew Yaffe (00:24.536)
Yeah, I started my career in high school as an intern in the National Football League's officiating department. And my job as a summer job was to clean their supply closet and mail the NFL officials their penalty flags and their jerseys.

Actually up there I have a number of NFL, official NFL penalty flags that I borrowed from the supply closet, I guess, almost 25 years ago. But I started there, graduated from that. They hired me to be an NFL game observer where I was paid, I think it was 50 bucks a game and a couple of slices of pizza to watch football from NFL headquarters. And probably the best job I have ever had or will ever have.

Sean Callanan (01:20.311)
And so, mean, was that a lot of people who are on the come on the podcast go, hey, I wanted to be in sports, wanted to work it in some way, obviously, you know, taking an intern role and being a game observers a long way from where you you currently are, what were some of the key key steps to, know, to get some of those roles that you were seeking?

Andrew Yaffe (01:39.682)
Yeah, it was not intentional. I always loved sports. I always wanted to work in sports. I didn't really know what that meant. Experiences like that made me realize there's a whole infrastructure and league office and opportunities beyond what you see on TV. So went to Duke for college and started in the sports journalism path, worked at the

Duke Chronicle, I actually have an exhibit of it behind me as a sports writer and columnist and then was the managing editor of the paper. So I explored that angle, ended up in a more traditional business role during the recession as a management consultant, but did one project there for one of the leagues and it kind of refreshed my

excitement and passion around sports business as a category. And so I actually took a couple of weeks off from that job and applied to more than 50 sports business jobs. Every job I could find, I met with anyone I could find at the company or the league or the team, found any job on any website I could find, applied for more than 50 of them, as I said, and ended up

at that time at the national basketball association in the team marketing and business operations group. And I had been doing data analytics and things of that sort before. And so they staffed me on ticket pricing and ticket sales analytics, as well as sponsorship analytics. And this was before the leagues or teams are really doing that in earnest. And so a few of us kind of got to cook up what we thought that should look like and do some of the very early.

analysis around how to better price tickets. And learned a ton in my time there. And it really set me on the path to say there's a real career in sports business. And it's taken many circuitous stops since then across a variety of roles and a variety of locations and functions. But it all started with that kind of desire to

Andrew Yaffe (04:04.544)
work at the behind the scenes and really what makes a lead to

Sean Callanan (04:11.015)
I'd have to go back and look at my stats, but I think I've had a fair few team bow the team marketing business operations alumni on the podcast. And it seems like he's because there's so many different facets to what that offices offers the clubs and the league, you do get a good feel for I he's all the different parts in the behind the scenes of the NBA. Do you think that you know, it's sort of like doing a little bit of a masters of sort of trying to understand a bit of the sports business.

Andrew Yaffe (04:37.162)
It, it, you know, think TMBO (Team Marketing and Business Operations) is an amazing training ground. it's a collection of just incredibly bright and ambitious, people with expertise in different areas. And so the amount you learn having lunch or, going on road trips with, with account managers or other people in the group.

you're constantly soaking up knowledge. So I, you know, had a little bit to bring to the table when I started there with a knowledge of how to think about analytics and how to do data work. But the amount I learned about sponsorship and how to actually sell tickets and how to think about marketing a team and social and digital from some of the best minds in each of those areas across sports was incredibly valuable. And so I think it's that cross pollination of

the different areas of expertise that really sets it apart and really gave me insight into the the broadest possible sports business background and really set me up well for everything I wanted to do going forward.

Sean Callanan (05:50.609)
And then looking over some of your roles in the NBA, you had a real strong global focus and a global strategy focus in a number of your roles as you sort of worked your way up the chain at the NBA. What was, I guess, what did that role entail and what were some of key projects that work from a global growth and a global strategy point of view?

Andrew Yaffe (06:12.866)
Yeah, so when I, after Team Bo, I went to business school and then eventually came back to the league and worked on the strategy team. And we were responsible for both domestic and international strategy. But yes, for a league like the NBA, global growth was a critical part of it. Some of the things that that group worked on included launching the Basketball Africa League and some of the

you know, earliest investments in and work on what that business plan would look like and what the operational plan would look like. but a lot of the other things, you know, just because 80 plus percent of the MBAs fan base is outside the U S everything that the MBA does is global. So we launched our e-sports league. We worked on our China strategy. We did. launched the junior MBA, which is our, youth basketball world championship that had.

teams from across the world come to Orlando to participate in the championship. We did a number of other things that touch not only domestic, but also our global fan base. My last project in that group was relaunching all of our digital assets. so investing in the NBA's app and League Pass, which

has a predominantly international audience. so really, while certain things were international specific, a lot of what we did was really just by definition global because of who the fan base is and who is going to use it.

Sean Callanan (07:55.399)
And part of that was under the tutelage of Adam Silver, who was a big proponent of snackable content. The quote of people will watch a little highlight and then they'll be drawn into the larger game. As your role developed from the global to being that social digital content focus, how good was it to have, a lot of the times we have the conversation of trying to get that buy in and navigate, dodging all those media rights that you have to do.

But sort of having that full steam ahead approach that sort of Adam gave you, how did that enable you to really fuel that growth, especially from a content point of view?

Andrew Yaffe (08:35.426)
Yeah, you know, think it, I think the foundation that the NBA had built over many years, was incredible and that I could lead an organization with such expertise and such.

Andrew Yaffe (08:56.842)
experience and such a big audience on social really gave us a lot of room to continue to experiment and take risks and innovate because we were so good at the core of it. We had really meaningful followings. We had really meaningful revenue bases. We obviously had to continue to invest to grow those and it wasn't easy, but because we

we're so good at the day to day, it allowed us to take some of the bigger swings and think and do some of the more fun and innovative and creative things. And I think that's something, know, Adam's also very passionate about was continuing to push, continue to be first, continue to identify ways to grow the audience and grow our business via social and digital.

Sean Callanan (09:51.323)
I mean, you mentioned the word innovation and sometimes that is appears in a title and people will talk about it on stage. But you know, there's the idea and then there's the execution. What did innovation look like for you at your time at the NBA?

Andrew Yaffe (10:05.898)
it looked different in a few different, periods. At one point I was the head of innovation. I think it was my title. can't remember exactly. but, the way we defined it was entering new business areas. and how do we take the brand and the assets of the NBA and go do new and exciting things that are valuable to our teams, our owners, our players.

all the stakeholders in the ecosystem. And, you know, I think there's sometimes organizations can get trapped in shiny object syndrome of doing something that looks cool or chasing whatever's in the headlines. Like, I think we tried to stay very grounded in what do we think will drive long-term value to the business over time? What do we think will more passionately engage our, you know, billion plus audience?

doesn't mean we didn't make mistakes or we didn't have failures. We were very comfortable that certain things would go wrong and that was okay. Because if you're not, you're never going to innovate. And so that was, think, from the innovation groups perspective when I was running. The strategy group was at one point called the innovation group. When I was doing that, how we approached it. And then when I was running the content team, it wasn't

dissimilar in that we were constantly trying to find new platforms, new formats, new collaborators to work with, new content concepts where we could innovate that whether it was our existing partners or our audience or our media partners wanted to work together in ways to ultimately make fans closer to the game. We had a lot of room to

experiment. And so one area that we

Andrew Yaffe (12:10.359)
that we

One example from the content world is youth sports and pre NBA basketball became, was just very popular. you know, 15, 20 years ago, NBA TV broadcast, LeBron James versus I think it was Carmelo Anthony in high school. And it was a big deal. There hadn't been as much engagement from the NBA with

youth basketball for many years. But I and my team went out and we got the rights to stream Victor Wimbenyama's games when he was not yet in the NBA in the French Pro League because we knew what kind of talent he was going to be. And there was no, you know, I think that was a great example of we had an idea. We figured out how to make the business case work and we went and we did it.

the year before Victor was in the NBA, he was the eighth most viewed player on the NBA's digital assets, as a, as a French professional. and I think it just showed the, ability with our scale to drive awareness of someone like him. And same thing happened. You know, we worked, we launched a whole platform called off that called NBA future starts now that featured all of the up and coming.

future superstars of the league. So Cooper Flagg when he was in high school was a big focus of the platform. you know, just this weekend, I know they broadcast Bryce James's games from a Nike league. And so it's, I think, just an example of something that started as a bullet on a whiteboard and eventually became a real new content platform for the league.

Sean Callanan (14:07.655)
Absolutely, I mean, it's following the what the film studio is doing of how do you expand the universe? I mean, these players will eventually be in the NBA universe. You are currently now CEO of Dude Perfect. You're only nearly five or six months into the role now. Tell us, tell us why, why the move and

Andrew Yaffe (14:17.486)
That's right.

Sean Callanan (14:36.389)
Yeah, I guess that's the starting point because I like I'm fascinated dude perfect as a business and looking for to dive in but yeah, why why make the move now?

Andrew Yaffe (14:44.14)
Yeah.

The content ecosystem, think, is on the precipice of a pretty significant shift. The way people are consuming content, the platforms, they're consuming content. What they're consuming is shifting rapidly and I think is only accelerating. And I saw that firsthand from how content consumption patterns were shifting at the NBA, the faith that

fans had and allegiance fans had to creators and athletes in addition to their favorite teams or leagues and the global power of the distribution platforms was just something that was really exciting to me. And, you know, I think there aren't a lot of really well established, meaningful, big creator brands.

that also have significant opportunity to grow. And so when this opportunity came along, it became pretty clear to me pretty quickly that the guys that built something amazing, this incredibly deep, long standing connection with an audience, but also had really just scratched the surface with what the opportunities are.

and where the content ecosystem and the content consumption patterns are going. I think we're as well positioned as anyone to take advantage of those. And that's really exciting. know, I went from, I used to say at the NBA that I ran the largest sports account on YouTube. We had 20 million subscribers. I realize I now run the largest sports account on YouTube. have 61 million subscribers.

Andrew Yaffe (16:41.55)
And that's just an amazing foundation from which to build, you know, the fact that we have the largest sports account on the largest streaming platform and sports is the largest, one of the largest categories, if not the largest category on that platform. We're just incredibly well positioned to continue to grow there and elsewhere.

Sean Callanan (17:07.823)
I mean, yeah, I completely agree on the shift considering when you're at the NBA and both in the strategy team and the content team, it was, we'll build our audience and we're competing with TV and other broadcasters. And since that time, the creator economy, Dude Perfect, starting with simple trick shots and then just keep going, leveling that up on YouTube. They're capturing just as much, if not more, of the attention that

you know, the fans that the NBA and the NFL and other leagues are trying, trying to chase down. I mean, they've done it, like, like you said, they've done an amazing job building a brand and building a fandom, you know, again, which what sports looks for. You know, a lot of people like myself would know them from YouTube, but what are the other parts of the business, you know, the guys that they're killer making videos, and you know, you're not coming in there to say, Hey, here's the next video, guys.

What's your role looking at the, I guess the business of Dude Perfect and some of the stuff that, that business infrastructure behind the scenes.

Andrew Yaffe (18:13.888)
Yeah, the guys are creative experts who know their audience far better than I ever will. And so I, I know my limitations or where I'm supposed to spend my energy. A couple of things, think they've done an amazing job over the last several years, continuing to build the business beyond YouTube. think phase one is how do we identify other content opportunities that make sense for

our talent and potentially other talent underneath the Dude Perfect umbrella. I think that's everything from new formats to new verticals. There are certain content areas where the guys are experts and passionate and we have a huge built-in audience already that we haven't created dedicated content and I think we have opportunities there, some natural gaming. We've just announced we're

relaunching Dude Perfect Gaming, which is a big category for us and one we're really excited about. But I think there's several others that could include things like golf and the outdoors and several others in the sort of new verticals. There are new formats from long form to podcasts to others that I think we're evaluating what opportunities make sense for us.

So, you I think there is that path. But the second that I think we have a lot of opportunity to be in is really new business lines. And again, the guys have been doing a lot of these over the last few years, but we really want to look at how we can continue to invest and integrate and build on them more. But we're doing our fifth live tour this summer. And, you know, we'll be in front of

north of a quarter million fans this summer, which we're really excited to do across more than 20 cities in the US and for the first time, six cities in Europe. And it's just a great example of a brand extension that over the last several years, they've built out and just continues to expand and grow. And so that's one example.

Andrew Yaffe (20:38.998)
have done a number of toys in the past. And it's an area that I think given our younger audience is an area that there's continued opportunity to invest in and grow. had the top selling board game in Walmart over the period where we launched. going to have a number of new, we just, well, this past holiday season launched a bounce house inflatable category.

Sean Callanan (21:06.779)
Yep.

Andrew Yaffe (21:07.946)
at Walmart as well. That's been really, really exciting and our fans have loved. And we have a whole lot more to announce there over this coming summer. But I think there's a whole range of products beyond that in the consumer space. We have a great deal with Body Armor and have collaborated with them on products that have sold incredibly well. And we're soon to announce our next collaboration with them this spring, which we're

We're really excited. It's a fun flavor coming soon, but that's one that's near and dear to us. And so I think they're just examples of there are a lot of things where given the size of our audience and the affinity and resonance and consistency of our brand, we can find products that we truly believe in and experiences that we think make sense for us and our talent.

lots of brands want to work with us to identify ways to get consumers those experiences and products. And so those are, think, some of the near term expansion opportunities for us outside of the YouTube channel.

Sean Callanan (22:23.143)
One of the things I wanted to ask, because a lot of the creators come from the content first, platform first, get their data from the platform. But if you look at the traditional sports, is ticketing based and database, and you're analyzing that. Was there a case of seeing what best practices you could bring from the NBA, from the league level that are, what's their data look like? What do we know about our customer? How do we own that data?

Andrew Yaffe (22:31.63)
Cough

Sean Callanan (22:52.839)
Is that something that's like, again, another opportunity to, you know, like better know your audience to make better decisions, all those different bets you want to make?

Andrew Yaffe (23:02.318)
Yeah, and I think the way I think about it, we think about it is the more information you have, the better decisions you can make. We want to know what markets should we go to for our tour and where do our fans want to see us? We want to know what products do they want from us and how can we help develop them? And so, I think sometimes people get scared off by the term data, but ultimately it's just…

information for us to better deliver on what our audience wants. And we want to be as smart as anyone in terms of our audience and what we can deliver. And don't want to be spending time and resources on things that our audience doesn't want. And so that's how I, that's the lens through which I view the importance of data. But I also do think it is, if you think about our experiences or our offerings,

We do want to put our audience or our fans at the center and think, okay, if this person comes to us and says, I really like outdoors content, they should have a different interaction with the Dude Perfect ecosystem that maybe, know, Bass Pro Shops is a great partner of ours. Maybe they want to see more of our integrations with Bass Pro Shops, or maybe there's a product line that we want to introduce to them than if they're

coming to us via golf content and where there's a different set of partners or products or experiences that we want to put in front of that audience. And so I do think having, does the whole Dude Perfect ecosystem fit together with the fan at the center is someplace we'd like to get to. We're not quite there yet. Honestly, I don't think that many sports teams or leagues are there yet. It's not easy.

Sean Callanan (24:53.605)
Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Yaffe (24:56.332)
But I think that's a journey we're certainly starting now.

Sean Callanan (25:01.361)
And one of the attractiveness of having that, you know, large connected engaged audiences is having brands come to you and say, Andrew, we want to, we want to reach that audience. It's an audience that we have trouble reaching with. What does, what are the steps that you take? Cause it's, know, they're always someone could always come with a big bag of cash, but you're also going to protect, you know, your fan base, your consumers. What are some of the things that you do to sort of, I guess, sense check those brands, but then also make sure that it is a

know, authentic integration.

Andrew Yaffe (25:32.482)
Yeah, I mean, we're fortunate in that we can be very selective in the brands that we work with. And they are all very authentic brands that we use, products that we use, food that we eat. And most of our deals start with a love of the content and a relationship. You know, we have a very high value audience.

70 % of our audience is 34 and under, very high or above average income, really parents and kids, like very attractive audience for brands. And so when we're having conversations with brands, it's often less about exactly how much audience are we gonna deliver. And it's more about how do we create an authentic, deeply integrated experience that…

resonates for your brand that solves whatever problem your brand is trying to solve and one that makes sense for us. So there was a video being filmed at our headquarters today that I can't get too deep in the creative, but it's for a, there's a very specific, the brand came to us with a very specific ask that they wanted to communicate to their audience. And we built an entire creative.

content plan around that. And I think that's something that there's very few scaled media brands or content brands can deliver. We have the nimbleness and the flexibility to deliver fully custom brand solutions at scale. You usually can either get fully custom creator solutions to a small audience or things like league or team or player sponsorship.

to get the scale that are far less custom and are more logo and impression oriented. We can provide real affinity and integration. So our latest Bass Pro Shops video was Tyler doing an 11 day deep sea fishing expedition to try to catch a thousand pound Marlin. Like for a Bass Pro Shops, is nothing more. They can't get that from anywhere else. And it can get, you know,

Andrew Yaffe (27:55.118)
the Instagram reel alone, was looking this morning, reached 15 million, had 15 million views. One reel that was a 30 second cut of that video. And so there aren't many places that brands can get both that custom and scaled solution. And so we're trying to find, know, the cut against that is we can't deliver that for 100 brands. is, we're very, and it's one of the reasons we're selective and we're not.

we don't have sort of a rate card out all over the place is that there's only a few slots that we can that we can supply that for. And we try to get really deep. And you see we have really deep long term partners that love that, that we know a lot about that we understand what their annual goals are, their quarterly goals are, and we're trying to build the right creative to help support that. And we can do that for a dozen partners or 15 partners, we can't do that, like

We don't aspire to be like the NBA or the Dallas Mavericks that are doing that for 100 partners. We just don't have the capabilities to deliver that custom solution for that many.

Sean Callanan (29:04.089)
one of the points you did say is that is that nimbleness as much as you know, the NBA has its structure of the season and the tempos of the All-Star and the playoff and the finals. You can't script that. You don't know who's going to be in there. You don't know if you're going to get access to those players. If that player rolls an ankle the day before the shoot, then that whole shoot is gone. Like it must have, it must be good to have some of that freedom to go. We're going to ideate this idea, you know, this, this concept and you know, shoot it. Obviously you've got the limitation of you can only stretch the guys's

Andrew Yaffe (29:17.123)
That's right.

Sean Callanan (29:32.197)
doing so many things, but at least you can say, we can lock those guys in for this date to be in this place.

Andrew Yaffe (29:36.566)
Yeah. Yeah. mean, I got a Steph Curry jersey behind me. We worked with Steph a couple of months ago and I think it's a great example where Rakuten, who's the Warriors jersey part patch partner and an endorser of Steph said, we really want to make a big splash with our new city edition jersey that we're the patch partner of. How can we, how can we launch a high impact piece of content?

on in mid October, right before that Jersey is revealed to drive awareness of it. And we said, we got this and put together a, you know, a content plan with that involves the F and Rakuten and the Jersey and a whole series of kind of challenges around that. And, you know, the core 30 minute video is north of I think 12 or 15 million.

views and so you're talking about hundreds of millions of hours of watch time on or tens of millions of hours of watch time on YouTube as well as hundreds of millions of impressions across social all targeted to when Rakuten wanted to launch that City Edition, the new jersey for the season. And so that I think is a great example of like we can target that date and we can build an entire plan around it across both.

our social assets, our core YouTube assets, partner assets like the Warriors and Steph Curry, and everyone can have a great experience together.

Sean Callanan (31:10.033)
And then part of that is again, that shift of it used to be, things would happen over on YouTube to be that shift now of, you that was, you know, I watched that on YouTube, but then it was also being watched on shorts. And then it was also being rebroadcast or shared on actual broadcast. And that was the other part I want to discuss of how the, the, the, do perfect team are appearing up on Altcast or what, you know, the college football pregame.

those kind of things because again, traditional media is going, we want to talk to that audience. the Dude Perfect are a reason that that younger audience might flick the channel to turn on ESPN or a different alt cast. How much of those, I guess, opportunities sort of just widening the universe for the Dude Perfect?

Andrew Yaffe (31:55.662)
Yeah, I mean, we love those opportunities because they're fun first and foremost and because they're authentic. Like we're all big sports fans and we wouldn't do this if we weren't. And so being, you know, the guys get into being college game day or be on Monday night countdown. You know, one of my favorite bits we did was we set the world record for longest hot dog toss into a bun and

Jason Kelce caught that from Tyler on Monday night countdown. Like those things are just fun to do. I think they're important for us as a brand because hot dog pots aside, I think they establish legitimacy and credibility. know, I'm as big a proponent as anyone of the power of YouTube and digital and social content, but traditional still matters. Like there is still a very, very large audience that is consuming on

on ESPN and around NFL games. You we were lucky enough to partner with Amazon to be a, to do an all cast for NFL games. And they're just a big mainstream audience there too. And often it's different than the audience that's consuming on YouTube. And so we really want to be where audience is. And so though, while just as the NFL or pro sports is trying to get younger and reach our audience on YouTube.

there is an audience that we want to reach on traditional as well. And so I think there's often a very happy marriage of opportunity.

Sean Callanan (33:32.443)
And it's a case, they talk about in the TV game about, you know, getting reps, like being on live TV and being on studio shows and being on pre games is very different base to being in the Dude Perfect headquarters and doing and doing trick shots. it, is it about the, about the guys, I guess, learning that how to hit those marks?

Andrew Yaffe (33:44.119)
It is.

Andrew Yaffe (33:52.616)
No, because you know, I don't think we're very clear that we're never going to do a traditional broadcast. And you're coming to the wrong place. If you want analytics and commentary, there are a thousand people out there who are going to give you a better analysis or analysis of the sport itself. I think what we specialize in is the fun around it and the competition around it and the passion of fandom. And so I don't think

we are the guys show up to any of these broadcasts or opportunities and say, how can I replicate what a Tony Romo or a Tom Brady does? It's let's be ourselves. Let's be authentic. Let's do what we know how to do best and make this fun. I talked to lots and lots of league executives of leagues of all sizes. And ultimately they come to us because they want to reach younger fans and they want their sport to be perceived as fun. And

think we know how to bring fun to these things. And so that's what we try to do. So I don't think it is about us getting reps or training to do the next thing. It's really, let's figure out how our own spin on whatever it is that we're doing at that given time.

Sean Callanan (35:10.821)
Yeah, I mean, you said before, you've worked with multiple content teams, different creative processes. It must be fascinating to turn up to do perfect and see the, I guess, the ideation and the creative process of the guys. What have you observed and learned just, you know, again, standing on the outside, watching them do what they do to come up with the ideas.

Andrew Yaffe (35:34.796)
Yeah, I, coming from the NBA where I oversaw 300 people, coming here to, you know, our whole company is 30. It was, it's very different. and I'm, I've been incredibly impressed by how lean and iterative and creative the team is. And it is often on the fly. a few people saying, Hey, what if we did this? What if we did that? Hey, why don't you go stand over there and we'll.

make this work or that work. it, like that is where the magic happens. it like, is amazing. mean, the founders of this company have been friends for most of 20 years and been working together for more than 15, like the chemistry they have, they like the telepathy. so they know what each other is going to think is funny. They know how to play off of each other. The creativity that develops in those moments of like taking an idea that

is good and knowing what's going to be, how to make it great is amazing. And I think, you know, the MBA obviously we had very different objectives, and a very different brand to manage, but the idea of just, we don't have a lot of the same infrastructure here. And I think it provides a lot more creative freedom that an idea can go from me saying something on the side of a shoot to

the director and one of the guys to being shot within minutes. And, you know, we've had examples where we're sitting around brainstorming a social idea and it goes from ideation to posted within 15 minutes. that those things are very hard to do at a, at a brand like the NBA here with 30 people. It's a lot easier and, and in some ways more fun to do.

Sean Callanan (37:26.087)
It's also, mean, look, hiking back to your NBA days and we work with teams and leagues. It is also carving out that time to have that idea sessions because you can sort of get caught in the, here's the next week, here's the next round of games, here's the next round of playoffs, and you never get the time to sort of step back. So sort of like the fact that, you you have, they do have that time and a bit more freedom because there's less infrastructure, but it is a real important thing. Otherwise you just sort of end up punching the clock every week.

Andrew Yaffe (37:51.201)
And at the end of the day, you know, we're a creative first company. That's, and we always will be. And that if we're not nailing, you know, our audience expects fun, bigger, new sports, new competition, and we feel the pressure, but also the opportunity to, all right, how do we build on this? How do we set another world record? How do we take the world's basketball shot even higher? How do we, what are all the things we can continue to do? And so that is, that is,

number one priority for us is that trusted family entertainment and that continued development. So those are things we hold very dear here.

Sean Callanan (38:32.335)
And a big part of their creative economy is that collaboration, whether it be other channels, you know, the guys appearing on other channels, other channels appearing guest appearances, and you know, the whole idea of of collabs, which effectively, mostly came from YouTube. And, you know, I spoke to the guys in New Zealand rugby when the team came down and did some stuff with the All Blacks and that were here in my town for the Grand Prix. How do you pick and choose some of those opportunities to say, we want to partner with that audience or that channel or that event?

Andrew Yaffe (39:03.31)
it's a, it's a great question. We, there's no shortage of invites to things. we, we try to be really selective around what do we think is a platform to do something new and big and different. And there's certain things that, you know, we'll, take on to experiment or understand better, but, we it's.

We try to keep the bar very high in terms of, we don't want to go and show up and do the same thing that someone else is doing. It's not worth our time. It's not worth a partner's time. Again, going back to the of the custom solution ideas, like I think our brand and I think our content and what our audience expects is something big and different that they've never seen before. And so we're not going to take on an opportunity unless we think we can deliver that.

Sean Callanan (39:56.579)
and you're nearly six months into the role, what excites you for the future, for the next 12 to 18 months at Dude Perfect?

Andrew Yaffe (40:06.24)
Yeah, I think a few things. One, our tour this summer. And I just think being in this seat for the first time at the tour, seeing tens of thousands of screaming fans, I think is, you just get a totally different sense for the fandom and the opportunity when you see it and can touch it and feel it. And so that is one thing I'm very excited for. So that'll be starting at the end of June.

and throughout July. So very excited for that. Second, getting our full team in place. I've been spending a lot of time on recruiting and talking to other potential executives about coming on board. And we've had a great set of conversations and we've made a couple of key hires already and have a few more in the pipeline. And I think once we really bring in that full team,

it's gonna really unlock a lot more opportunity and a lot more exciting elements for us. So I think those are on the content side and then on the internal side, those would be the two things I'm most excited for.

Sean Callanan (41:20.039)
I mean, it is a case, mean, you've got, there is so many opportunities, like in small teams, you've got to really sort of lock in and say, we're gonna get this right, get the process right, and then move on to the next, because otherwise you could do a lot of things really poorly. Is that sort of your focus right now?

Andrew Yaffe (41:35.756)
Yes, yes, we really do want to make sure that we're protecting and executing on the core. I would say the big focus over the last few months has been launching our headquarters. we just earlier in January launched, we call HQ3 our third headquarters. And it is awesome. It is 80,000 square feet. It's got a football field and a state of the art workout, pickleball court.

golf simulator, putting green, custom mini golf course, full basketball court. It's just like a really exciting venue for us. I think signals how permanent we are and that how I think what our ambitions are. And so there have been a lot of opportunities over the last few months, but real focus has been how do we really make our stamp on the world with this? so.

We've spent a lot of energy in getting, we had Tom Brady and Bryson DeChambeau and Noah Lyles and Nate Bargatze and a number of, I'm probably forgetting people, other A-Lists, Cody Rhodes from WWE come through. And that was really the focus. And to that point is, you know, we got to nail the core. There is a ton of opportunities. We will have time and bandwidth to get to them.

But if we don't take care of the brand and take care of the content and really why we have so much love and affinity from our audience, we need to nail that. And so that's priority one, two, and three right now. And there's a lot, as you said, there's a lot of opportunities. Part of my job is saying no, or saying later and ensuring that we're focused on the things that are gonna drive the most impact immediately.

Sean Callanan (43:29.511)
Well, hopefully the data will say later is a trip down under and maybe a tour or a show down under. I'd love to see it come down here. I want to get to edge. I'd really appreciate it taking the time. I want to get to the sports geek closing five. You would have been to a lot of sports events in your life, but do you remember the first sports event you ever attended?

Andrew Yaffe (43:37.934)
We would love to. We are.

Andrew Yaffe (43:51.918)
I believe it was a New York Mets game in the late 80s or early 90s with my mother.

Sean Callanan (44:01.748)
I've actually been to Mets game. It's a great place to watch a game.

Andrew Yaffe (44:08.078)
This was in the previous stadium, which was not a great place to watch a game. But Shea Stadium Hall is a very special place in my heart.

Sean Callanan (44:12.647)
This is true.

Sean Callanan (44:18.711)
you would have been a lot of different sports events. Do you have a favorite, a favorite food or a go to food at a sports event?

Andrew Yaffe (44:26.926)
I am a Duke Blue Devil and the Duke basketball games will forever be my favorite sporting event. and at least when I was there, it probably is better now, but when I was there, there are very limited food selections, but you used to have to camp out for hours and hours before the games and then wait in the gym for a few hours before the game started. And so you hadn't eaten all day.

and we're jumping up and down and sweating and gross. But you can sneak out at halftime and get a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. the Cameron Indoor Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich is a special one for me.

Sean Callanan (45:10.968)
Very good. Running a global content business, you have things coming from all directions. What's the first app you open in the morning?

Andrew Yaffe (45:25.186)
I would say my email. I don't know if that's the wrong answer. think a lot of mental health gurus would tell me that's the wrong answer, but I do open and see if anything's broken, if there's anything we need to deal with urgently. So yeah, it's hard to get past the email in the morning.

Sean Callanan (45:43.387)
There is a few guests that do that, that pause. should I say it? Should I say it? yeah, it is. It's email. It's fine. I appreciate your honesty. Yeah. Exactly. Is there someone that you follow and it might be someone in the, you know, in the creator space or, or, or a colleague that you've followed for a long while that the listeners should follow and why.

Andrew Yaffe (45:46.83)
This is where I'm supposed to say I meditate. I open my meditation app and spend 10 minutes listening, but I don't.

Andrew Yaffe (46:07.99)
Yeah, let's see. There's a number of people. One who I think that's really interesting and a little bit offbeat. There's a woman named Casey Lewis who writes a newsletter around what Gen Z is consuming on social. And I think she, you know, isn't always the most directly applicable for us, but.

I think just given our audience, it's really helpful to stay on top of trends and understand a different perspective and is a little bit outside the traditional sports business lane. And so I think that's really helpful one for me.

Sean Callanan (46:48.091)
And lastly, I always ask this question personally and then also from the brands and from a dude point of view, but what social media platform is your MVP?

Andrew Yaffe (46:58.158)
It's got to be YouTube. think the interplay of shorts and long form, the amazing reach, the global nature of it, I think it's where I spend a lot of my time and an increasing percentage of my time because there's just so much content, especially as YouTube gets deeper into live sports, sports adjacent content.

YouTube TV integrations. I think there's just the ecosystem there is just incredibly powerful. So it is certainly my MVP.

Sean Callanan (47:35.719)
And I mean, on that, mean, you would have been at the NBA when people were like sports overall, we're of awkwardly half using YouTube. Part of it was the TV rights and the media rights. And, know, when people talked about social YouTube was sort of, oh, it's just a video platform over here. But it, you know, obviously it has accelerated and sort of that shift, we're seeing that shift of more sports, putting more content on that sort of following the creators in is that sort of.

how you sort of see YouTube, especially in the last eight years or so, just really take off.

Andrew Yaffe (48:07.118)
Yeah, I mean, think a lot of the other platforms have experimented with live or long form content. No one else has really done it successfully or well. And if you look at how sports fans like to consume, they want short form, long form and live. And YouTube is the only one that can deliver all of that in a really integrated way. And I think YouTube has done an amazing job of

penetrating the living room experience. More than half of all YouTube content is now consumed on the big screen. And I think it just creates, think for a long time, YouTube content has been really premium. I think people are finally starting to catch up with the perception that it's not cat videos. It's not, you know, kids in their basements. There is real premium TV-worthy content of 25, 30 minutes an hour that people want to watch in their.

in a lean back way on their living room. And I think there aren't really, the other platforms don't have all of those different elements at the same place.

Sean Callanan (49:15.109)
Yeah, definitely. do think that early adoption of YouTube being on the smart TV and that's where people are consuming it has been a big part of that shift and the fact that it is, yes, starting skew older and being more accessible and being more mainstream. Andrew, I really do appreciate you taking the time. Hopefully we can connect in real life with either in my travels or your all the best for the year ahead at Dude Perfect.

What's the best way if someone was to reach out and say, Andrew, I really enjoyed the podcast and just say thank you. What's the best platform for them to do that to you with you?

Andrew Yaffe (49:50.958)
Probably reaching out to me on LinkedIn, I would say is probably the easiest way to get to me.

Sean Callanan (49:57.927)
All right, well, thank you very much. Andrew, really do appreciate it.

Andrew Yaffe (50:01.486)
All right, take care.