Hello, friends.

On the slate today for Creating Sports VI:

• Jordan Sperber extends the basketball creator-to-team pipeline

• Content doesn’t sleep for Olympic hopefuls

• Halftime entertainment from Coach RAC

• Top sports creator and industry news you need to know

Let’s dig in.

Jordan Sperber: Latest Basketball Creator to Join a Team

Jordan Sperber previously worked for college basketball teams, initially as a graduate assistant for the University of Nevada Reno (2015-16) and then as a video coordinator for New Mexico State (2016-18). Now, after six years spent carving out a niche as one of the smartest creators in college basketball, he is returning to where his professional career began.

Second-year Mississippi State head coach Chris Jans announced he has hired Sperber as his program’s Senior Director of Basketball Strategy. It’s a reunion, as Sperber worked under Jans during his final year at New Mexico State.

How Sperber stood out: Sperber operated Hoop Vision, a website he initially started as a high school junior before later going all-in on the venture in 2018. Calling himself “somewhere between a basketball coach and a data scientist” who combines film study with analytics, he set out to help fans – and coaches – watch basketball smarter.

Sperber primarily relied on video for his public-facing content, which included:

• A YouTube channel with 116K subscribers averaging 115K views per video across 159 videos that taught the game at a high level.

• A Twitter account with 47K followers, including a who’s-who in the college basketball world who enjoyed his often-viral videos.

• A premium offering, “Hoop Vision Plus,” featuring a newsletter, exclusive audio and videos, and Q&As.

The pipeline: Sperber is merely the latest in an increasingly long line of basketball creators to be hired by teams. In fact, an entire website called “The Stepien” essentially shut down because its writers – including Cole Zwicker (Houston Rockets), Jackson Hoy (Memphis Grizzlies) and Sean Derenthal (Oklahoma City Thunder) – kept getting hired by NBA teams as scouts. Recruiting writers (Corey Evans), ESPN analysts (Mike Schmitz) and scouts (Andrew Slater) were all hired by NBA teams in recent years.

Most, though, primarily produced written content. Sperber’s best comparison would likely be Adam Spinella whose YouTube channel blossomed to nearly 20K subscribers while he co-hosted “The Box and One” podcast with Sam Vecenie before the Philadelphia 76ers hired him last season.

Content Never Sleeps, Even for Olympic Trials Creators

Athlete creators are constantly walking the tightrope of time management. At certain times, their time and energy need to be focused primarily on their sport. What complicates matters is that often those moments are peak content opportunities.

A prime example? The Olympic Trials.

For a majority of the athletes, the Trials are a culmination of a life’s work. They represent everything they have ever been working toward in their sport. And yet, in the world of content, these are also perhaps the moments when the athletes can pull in the most eyeballs. For many, the spotlight will never be brighter. So, they cannot afford to pass it up.

We have seen a number of creators push out quality content at the Olympic Trials. Some examples:

• Noah Lyles. He posted a YouTube video that he had in the bank the day after winning gold in the 100 meters, and he uploaded a short of his winning race, too.

• Hunter Woodhall and Tara Davis-Woodhall. They posted a YouTube video of Woodhall qualifying for the Paralympics.

• Ian Gunther. He has posted daily short-form content with the men’s gymnastics team.

• Cody Miller. He posted a long-form pool tour at the Trials, along with several shorts.

Halftime Entertainment

Coach RAC has more than doubled his number of YouTube subscribers in the past year. The part-baseball creator, part-Savannah Bananas star (who just signed with Outshine Talent as his agency) continues to grow his presence online thanks to high-quality content like this behind-the-scenes piece.

Want to know what it was like for the Savannah Bananas to play at Fenway Park? Coach RAC is your guy.

10 Of ‘Em: Creators & Content & Changes

• Lethal Shooter coached at the Nike Top-100 Summit.

• Dude Perfect, the Broadcast Boys, Dani Austin and Nicky Cass will participate in MLB's All-Star Celebrity Softball Game.

• Josh Moore was named Athlete Creator of the Year at the NIL Summit.

• Irv’s Burgers named a burger after Nina Drama.

• The NFL is hosting a session at VidCon Anaheim.

• The Lakers hired noted creator JJ Reddick as head coach.

• The Boston Red Sox invited Alex Cooper to throw out the first pitch.

• Ricky Cobb of Super 70s Sports will host a show on Outkick.

• The San Francisco 49ers are no longer working with Dr. Disrespect.

• Dave Portnoy and Hank Lockwood joined the Boston Celtics parade.

See you next week

Three weeks of Creating Sports, six newsletters down.

Because of the July 4 holiday, we’ll be keeping next week to one mid-week newsletter before getting back to our regular two-a-week cadence the week after.

Thanks for sticking with us as we get underway. If you haven’t subscribed, please do (and tell a friend)!

Talk soon,

Colin