It was a family affair to open Day 2 of the ’16 NeuLion Sports Media & Technology Conference. IMG College VP Dan Shell joined his older brother, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group Chair Jeff Shell, on stage for a talk about the sports business, movie business and being avid Dodgers fans. An added bonus -- their mother was in the front row to hear her Berkeley-educated sons chat. Jeff had a long history in sports before moving over to feature films, handling the RSN business for Fox Sports and then Comcast. He said of the parallels between the movie and sports businesses, “The movie business will evolve like the sports business has, where you can watch on different devices in different places. But we’re way behind where the sports business is.”
COLLEGE MAN: Dan was always on a path in sports. His passion was coaching basketball, and he was an assistant for St. Mary’s before moving over to the business side. He said of the explosion of the college multimedia rights space, “College sports in general is growing, and multimedia is just one side of it. ... You’re also reading a unique demographic and audience. Advertisers want to be part of this experience.” Dan also talked about why colleges need to outsource ad sales versus hiring someone to work in the athletic department, saying, “There is a sophistication to the business now that an IMG, or some of our competitors, can bring to it. It’s not just selling radio and a sign in the arena. These are sophisticated partnerships that you’re putting together. To build that out in-house, even to pay commissions at a university level, is very, very difficult.” Jeff added that his division at Universal is buying into college. Jeff: “Probably the most rabid youth audience are college students. They go to the movies more than anybody else, and it’s important to engage them. So if we had to go buy every university individually, it would be too hard. So it's great to go to IMG and buy across a bunch of Saturday games.”
BUBBLE BOY: Jeff has a meeting on Friday that cannot be moved that conflicts with the Dodgers’ NLDS game, so Dan noted Jeff will be “going into his bubble” from 2:30-8:00pm PT, screening all calls and tuning out all media. Dan: “It’s ridiculous.” Jeff: “I’m gonna do it!” Jeff: “I have my assistant screen all my calls. Anyone who engages me during this time, I begin any conversation with, ‘Please don't tell me what the Dodgers score is.’ And then there are only three or four people that can pierce that bubble.” Dan: “Every time the bubble is violated, every time, I get personally blamed for it, whether I violated the bubble or not.”
