Every three months, a TV network announces layoffs. Career dependence on networks is no longer reliable. Today, everything is about audience. If you control an audience or curate a community, you are the value.
Disagree? Ask Pat MacAffee.
If you’re trying to break into sports journalism, don’t ask yourself: How can I find a network job? Ask: How can I build my own network, my own audience? That I OWN! How can I establish relevance and domain authority? What platforms should I use to do it? What “space” is ripe for me to explore?
Being unique requires going to less crowded spaces.
JOMBOY started by doing lipdubs for Yankees games and parlayed that into a global sports platform.
Mr. Beast was making videos in his basement and created a billion dollar YouTube channel.
Justin Bieber was posting covers of Usher songs before he got discovered as the talent that he is.
None of these people had ANY advantages. All of them started by entertaining niches and then scaled their communities to larger and lucrative audiences.
So share your voice, find your fans, and discover untapped space to change the game and build YOUR OWN “network” that YOU OWN to guide YOUR career.
This was delivered as part of a speech given at the Syracuse Newhouse School of Public Communications
