As John Ourand was exiting a party held by ESPN in New Orleans ahead of Super Bowl XXXVI, he remembers Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young being ahead of him and approaching a crowd of fans waiting for the celebrities. Walking behind Ourand was Chris Berman, the longtime SportsCenter anchor who has worked at the company throughout its 45-year history. Ourand was nonplussed to discover that the patrons flocked towards Berman, indicative of a keen realization in the interest and intrigue surrounding the sports media business.
There is much curiosity and fascination surrounding rights deals, mergers and acquisitions, commentary assignments and other transactions in the space, facilitating the development and eminence of the reporting space. Ourand understands that media conglomerates operate in a high-stakes marketplace with fundamental changes to different facets of the business, but he also recognizes the appeal of character development and storytelling. Since joining Puck to build out its sports business vertical, he has sought to provide comprehensive, accurate modicums of reporting and analysis within private emails and podcast episodes.
“People feel that I’m writing right to them, and it invites people to respond to me, and in ways that writing for a magazine and having a byline or even a website and just sort of having a byline doesn’t quite work,” Ourand said. “All you have to do is hit ‘Reply,’ and our style of writing and our way of getting things out makes it very conversational, and that just seems to work really well for us.”
Ourand previously had an 18-year tenure at Sports Business Journal where he denoted possessing autonomy towards what he covered in constructing the overall beat. Yet over the last several years, he began to receive and read content from Puck, the startup company established and operated by veteran journalists spanning a junction of entertainment, politics, technology and finance.
“I got to talking with Jon Kelly, who runs it, and [he] has a vision for Puck and he has a vision for journalism, and I bought into that vision,” Ourand said. “It was very, very hard to leave SBJ, and it took way too long for me to finally sort of make the jump to get over to Puck, but it was really just the idea.”
Part of the appeal in joining Puck was derived through the premise of joining a team of skilled, driven reporters spanning multiple genres. On top of that, there is the ability to collaborate on certain projects and add more background surrounding various stories and developments. As Ourand approaches the completion of his first year with the outlet, he believes the job has exceeded his expectations and has enabled him to reach people outside of the sports business realm.
“There’s very much a startup ethos around Puck that’s intoxicating and really a lot of fun to be a part of,” Ourand said. “If you’ve been doing what I’ve been doing, you’re naturally competitive with pretty much everyone and everything…. It’s a friendly competition, of course, but if I put out something that consistently doesn’t meet the standards that they’ve already set, I start to feel a lot of angst.”
Ourand’s private email and podcast are billed under The Varsity, forums through which he communicates with subscribers and provides original reporting twice per week. Although there are some themes that have stretched over multiple weeks or months, he ensures that his reports are not stating the obvious or boring. Moreover, the engaging and riveting writing style within his biweekly dispatches allows his personality to shine through and deviates from traditional hard news journalism.
“The idea behind Puck is we want to give you a lot of really good information, but we also want to make you laugh at times too,” Ourand said. “We are very serious about it, but you can still laugh at a lot of things as well.”
Describing his job akin to playing a game of telephone where the initial message differs from the final transmission, Ourand is trying to discover the genuine truth of what is taking place. In routinely hearing news and rumors, he investigates what information is correct, what is false and what may be embellished. In addition, he works to foster connections with people at networks and leagues, so he is able to receive and subsequently verify intel.
“If you hear something, you have to be able to cross-reference the information,” Ourand said. “As somebody that covers this business for Puck, that’s essential to make sure that what I’m putting out is not only accurate, but it also has sort of like high-level analysis for why deals get done or how deals get done.”
There have been instances during Ourand’s career in which he has lost scoops because he was unsure if the information he obtained was accurate. In demonstrating restraint and authenticity in his reporting, he has developed a stellar track record and earned the trust of readers. Ourand is not running with any rumors or conjecture he may hear from one person; rather, he is getting multiple perspectives and can then accompany that with relevant context and analysis.
“It just involves talking to as many people as I can that are involved with the story and trying to get it out that way,” Ourand said. “One of the unique things about Puck is that I still prioritize breaking news, and I still love breaking news at Puck, but my private email comes out on Mondays and on Thursdays.”
As Puck is new in covering the sports business, adding an established, credible reporter in Ourand helps the publication in broadening its base of readers and delivering a heightened return on investment. Readers are also able to communicate directly with him by replying to the private email, and he will oftentimes highlight messages in his ‘From the Cheap Seats’ section that concludes the proverbial tip sheet.
“I get a lot of people hitting reply and commenting, and I get a good sense from that of what stories resonate and not,” Ourand explained, “but mainly, it’s about, ‘Hey, this is something that I see going on. This is something that interests me,’ and at some point, you have to trust your own judgment on that.”
Every private email within The Varsity includes ‘The Main Event,’ which is a longer story examining a pertinent issue, divulging new developments or condensed question and answer sessions from the accompanying podcast. One of the first sections in the newsletter is titled ‘The Starting Five’ and provides shorter modules reviewing what is occurring in the sports business. Rather than aiming to own a particular story, he aspires to keep subscribers caught up by essentially opening his notebook and illuminating what he has learned.
“I’ve been doing this for a pretty long time, and I have a pretty good sense of the type of news, the type of information and the analysis that people want to read and that will drive people to subscribe,” Ourand said. “I try to have a very thick skin, and so I listen. When people are bored by a certain story, I have the ability to pivot and go different ways.”
A frequent leitmotif during the inception of The Varsity was the Ch. 11 bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group as the subsidiary sought to enter a restructuring support agreement and emerge solvent. Ourand estimates that the lead story pertained to this situation in every other version early in the year, but he eventually rolled that back and made it one of his items in ‘The Starting Five’ instead.
“Cord cutting is happening,” Ourand said. “The subscriber numbers are declining pretty significantly. The big question that I don’t really have an answer to but I’m studying is, ‘What is zero? Will cable go down to zero? How far will it fall?’”
When Ourand was working with Sports Business Journal, he co-hosted an award-winning podcast with then-New York Post sports media columnist Andrew Marchand. The collaboration between the two companies gained traction and received plaudits from various professionals in the business. Ourand remains friends with Marchand, who moved to The Athletic this past January, and makes one joke about him per newsletter.
“The one week that we kept that Marchand joke out, I had about probably 10 responses from people, which is, for an email like this, a lot, saying, ‘You’re not getting rid of that, are you?’” Ourand said. “I have people that email me, ‘Hey, you should do this one as a joke.’”
Two new episodes of The Varsity podcast come out per week, the Tuesday edition of which is Ourand working to recreate what he had with Marchand by inviting reporters to discuss topical media business issues. The other edition of the show, which is released every Sunday, features interviews with industry executives, commentators and agents.
“Those are good, thorough in-depth discussions just about the business and where the business is going,” Ourand said, “and so if you like that, you get a sense at who I’m talking to, and you get a sense of what is in The Varsity private email twice per week.”
As Ourand continues to build out the sports business vertical at Puck, he will be focused on following pivotal short- and long-term developments, one of which pertains to NFL media rights contracts. Ourand stated that the league will “almost certainly” opt out of most of its deals in 2029, leading to a new stage of negotiations amid a media environment that could look markedly different than the current composition. NFL games accounted for 93 of the 100 most-watched television programs last year, and the league continues to build relationships with streaming platforms such as Amazon’s Prime Video and Netflix.
“The question I have is, ‘Do you find more reach through a streamer like Netflix, or do you still find more reach on a network like FOX?,’” Ourand said. “Right now, I think it’s probably still FOX, but is it changing? How much will it change? How much will that rush to create more reach affect the NFL in its next media deal?’”
Ourand wonders if streamers will become involved with the UFC as its media rights deal with ESPN nears expiration next year, conveying that it could be “a good bellwether to check” regarding streamers becoming involved in sports. ESPN will also drive significant interest as he believes the company will “almost certainly” exercise an out in its MLB deal and launch its Flagship direct-to-consumer product. Ourand will also continue to scrutinize local media rights as MLB could aim to package them as part of national deals in the future. In the end though, he hopes to disseminate quality sports business content and contribute to Puck further augmenting its standing in the multimedia ecosystem.
“What makes a successful day is if I put out an email and I feel like I am breaking news, I’m providing analysis [and] I have things that people don’t know,” Ourand said. “It’s all an internal feel that’s difficult to ascribe. It has little to do with feedback or new subscribers or anything like that. I want my stuff to be read by decision makers, and I want them to learn something.”
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.
Derek Futterman is an associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, email Derek@BarrettMedia.com or find him on X @derekfutterman.
