Just when sports critics said baseball was on the verge of dying, the sport perennially known as “America’s Pastime” found a way to reinvent itself. With a new collective bargaining agreement came the institution of rule changes – including a pitch clock, limits on defensive shifts, and larger bases. An Opening Day interleague battle between the San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees finished in a crisp two hours and 33 minutes, down from last season’s average game length of three hours and three minutes. Despite being an avid Yankees fan and enjoying baseball, Jake Storiale knows these rule changes allow the game a greater chance of staying relevant in generations to come.
What may be more potent than any rule change, however, is in developing and embracing superstars. Over the last several years, Major League Baseball and its entities have been criticized for inadequately marketing emerging talents and veteran mainstays. Yet the World Baseball Classic, an international showcase of talent in the form of a preseason tournament, displayed the best the sport has to offer on a global scale.
It helped Major League Baseball players well-known in their home markets, such as St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar, gain 549,000 Instagram followers throughout the event. His WBC teammate and two-time American League Most Valuable Player Shohei Ohtani became the first major leaguer to reach 4 million Instagram followers, gaining approximately 2 million during the tournament alone.
A particularly revealing moment in the tournament was the reaction to the manifestation of a dream scenario – Los Angeles Angels teammates and top players in the sport facing off with a championship on the line. Even better was that the showdown took place in the ninth inning with two outs in a one-run game, rendering the result of Mike Trout’s at-bat against Ohtani pivotal for Team USA and Team Japan.
“I know we were talking with Trevor Plouffe, who we host Talkin’ Baseball with, [and] he coaches a Little League team and he said that all of his kids were talking about the Trout-Ohtani at-bat,” Storiale said. “They were all bummed out on Mike Trout because he lost one at-bat. He was trying to tell the kids, ‘Hey, baseball doesn’t really work like that.’”
Baseball, like many other popular sports, has an emphasis on the team and many local fans primarily focus on the groups to whom they have an allegiance. Storiale, for example, grew up in Connecticut and was always following the New York Yankees. Throughout his life, he has lived in Dallas and Denver and keenly noticed the Texas Rangers and Colorado Rockies being discussed the most as it pertains to professional baseball. The World Baseball Classic shattered those walls
While he has always had an allegiance towards the Yankees and has experienced five World Series championships during his time as a fan thus far, he aims to utilize the platform he and his friend from Central Connecticut State University, Jimmy O’Brien, essentially created from scratch. Jomboy Media is prominent among baseball fans and has quickly cemented itself into one of the fastest-growing digital sports media outlets in the world.
The hard work and consistent pressure they felt to reach this point could perhaps be equated to New York Yankees outfielder and team captain Aaron Judge standing at the plate with the bases loaded in a full count with the game on the line.
“After a certain point, we treated it like a full-time job; it was kind of that fight or flight,” Storiale said. “I wasn’t working another gig. We were doing our Yankees stuff – it was either, ‘Make it work in a year or two,’ or it was going to be like, ‘Alright, we gave it a try and it didn’t work.’
Consistency and an indefatigable yearning to succeed kept O’Brien and Storiale going in their quest to build a company employing genuine fans and cultivating a voice that places “fun over funny.” Storiale’s path to sports media though was unusual in that he began working in energy solutions out of college – first with Consolidated Electrical Distributors in Chicago and then with Rexel Energy Solutions, where he worked his way to become a marketing manager in Denver.
Amid a crowded media ecosystem that projects to soon contain 500 million podcast listeners, being a distinct entity and generating unique, compelling content is a monumental task in and of itself. The chemistry between O’Brien and Storiale on their podcast, titled Talkin’ Yanks, is evident from the onset, and the duo informs and entertains their audience through their innate knowledge and expertise.
Most importantly though, they exhibit an ostensible passion for their work and the future of the company – which raised $5 million in a funding round led by Connect Ventures.
“Whenever we’re talking about anything, we’re talking about it passionately as a fan instead of where it’s different than a reporter getting hired [and going], ‘Okay, I covered Clemson football for one year. Oh, a job with the Timberwolves opened; I’m going to take that,’” Storiale hypothesized. “We talk about stuff that we’re passionate about.”
When he was growing up, Storiale was introduced to Yankees baseball through his father and watched the careers of all-time greats unfold, including Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettite and Jorge Posada, better known as “The Core Four.”
Although it helps that the team widely regarded as the most accomplished and storied franchise in professional sports has not posted a losing season since 1992 – an unprecedented stretch of 30 years – Storiale’s interests went beyond the pinstripes. He is a proponent of the new schedule, which calls for all teams to play one another for at least one series during each regular season, and hopes it catalyzes the growth of baseball into more of a national sport while retaining its local appeal.
“I think baseball is a very regional sport,” Storiale said, “and I think baseball kind of fought that for a little bit.”
The new schedule comes at a time when a preponderance of sports talk radio stations are creating and refining digital content, emphasizing its expansion over the next year. Proof of quantifiable success in this regard can be found in its 1.72 YouTube subscribers and 319,000 Twitter followers and consistently high levels of engagement. Jomboy Media has been in the digital space early in its development through unparalleled video breakdowns and a wide variety of sports-based podcasts.
It has a considerable share of listenership from those in the 18-35 demographic and works to try to find new ways to reach its audience, whether that be through live game broadcasts, watch parties, or new forms of content. Although Storiale believes sports radio was at its finest when Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo were hosting together on ESPN Radio, his hosting style does not necessarily reflect the amicable contentiousness accentuated by WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog.
“I just want people to be as comfortable as possible,” Storiale said. “We just started doing our weekly Aaron Boone interview, and I think the more comfortable he is and the more conversational, the better answers you’re going to get in everything we cover.”
In welcoming the Yankees’ manager onto their program once per week, Jomboy Media made a statement to its audio competitors – primarily WFAN and 98.7 ESPN New York – regarding its legitimacy and growing influence in the sports media space. Nonetheless, sports radio remains an essential part of the consumption space, and something Storiale ascertains will continue to remain imbued in the industry vernacular.
The times are changing though, and listeners are valuing timeliness, authenticity, and accessibility perhaps now more than ever before, making the intrinsic synergy between O’Brien and Storiale especially valuable in the podcast niche.
“You’re just getting honest conversation with a lot of silly stuff around it because, at the end of the day, I think where sports are important and there’s so much money tied up in everything, sports in its soul is supposed to be fun,” Storiale expressed. “If you’re not having fun around it, you’re kind of doing it wrong.”
Since his video breakdown of the Houston Astros stealing signs throughout the 2017 regular season went viral, Jomboy Media has steadily developed into a force among baseball fans at the very least. While Talkin’ Yanks recaps every Yankees series over the course of the season, provides breakdown and analysis and guest appearances by enticing personalities, there is an expanding lineup of content offerings sure to engross all sports fans. Podcast hosts include former MLB Network host Chris Rose; Chicago Cubs outfielder Ian Happ; and former major-league third baseman Trevor Plouffe among others.
“We want people to make what they’re passionate about,” said Storiale, who also works in business operations for the company. “….I’m a big believer, even coming from my previous companies, that things are kind of top-down driven. I used to work in different divisions where there’d be great leadership and you could feel it throughout the division. There were other divisions where you were like, ‘Oh my gosh. That person’s leaving the division?,’ and you could see the holes in it.”
In today’s social media era, consumers possess an amplifier to disseminate their perspectives and opine on content offerings, effectively putting them in the driver’s seat. It is through their habits, combined with innovations in technology, that fuel exponential growth and ideation in sports media.
Thinking about the voice of consumers as a consensus rather than meeting the individual needs of each is an effective way to view the landscape when attracting and captivating a larger audience. Many practitioners would argue against regarding an individual as picayune, perhaps regarding it as impudent and contemptuous; however, trying to please everyone in a world with a diverse set of interests and proclivities is near-impossible.
“It’s a balance of juggling comment sections,” he said. “If you read one negative comment but something’s got 100,000 views and everyone seems to like it, you can only do so much with that comment.”
As a company, Jomboy Media is seemingly tight-knit and fosters a congenial atmosphere, making it a place where people want to be and have the urge to perform. Many of the employees at the company consider each other to be family, and they all work in tandem to form and maintain a content powerhouse. O’Brien is enzymatic in demonstrating his commitment and persistence to engender the continued expansion and reach of the brand on its multiple platforms.
“Nobody outworks Jimmy,” Storiale affirmed. “I give him hell on my best weeks. I think that kind of sends a message throughout the company – if you want to do this; if you want to be in the content grind, you’ve got to go for it. At the same time, [go for it] with a little bit of a competitive edge but with a lot of family feel.”
Collaborations with NESN and YES Network, regional sports networks that broadcast games for the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, respectively, have given the brand and its personalities increased exposure to those consumers who operate using traditional media. When he finds himself attending baseball games at Yankee Stadium, he feels he is being recognized more and commended for the job he does as a podcast host and an entrepreneur.
“There’s a lot of people that still come home and throw on the TV,” Storiale said. “There’s a lot of days where I’m that person; you just kind of want to turn off your brain and watch something good.”
Storiale will undoubtedly be invested in the Yankees this season, a team with a deep roster of superstars including Gerrit Cole, Aaron Judge, Carlos Rodón, and Giancarlo Stanton. He also finds himself watching other sporting events more often than before though, expanding his scope beyond baseball. The NFL Draft, for example, interests him, along with the upcoming Master’s Tournament and conclusion to March Madness in college basketball.
In the end, the success of the company boils down to its ability to relate to fans and differentiate itself from other content providers. As more companies adopt direct-to-consumer abilities, the chance to narrowcast nonlinear content is becoming more palpable, meaning they are, in a way, trying to catch up to what Jomboy Media and other digital brands have created.
Conversely, traditional media outlets have a fortified consumption base, and the challenge for these digital outlets remains in expanding their reach to new audiences. Storiale is excited to be on this journey and is swinging for the fences akin to No. 99, utilizing his fandom and friendship to generate not just ratings and revenue, but a voice and outlet for love of the game.
“Something we said early on that still lingers is, ‘Grow,’” Storiale articulated. “I know that sounds generic, but… we want to grow into whatever we are ready to grow into.”
