World Congress 2020: Geoff Reiss and Ishwara Glassman Chrein

On the current environment of the media landscape:

Reiss: The things that we are best at are things that match up with fundamental consumer needs, with some fundamental consumer passions, and those passions are going to endure this particular moment in time. 

ReissGino DePinto / Verizon Media

Glassman Chrein: We’ve been lucky that the NFL has begun giving us a lot of great news stories, and we have a great team of writers and producers who are doing amazing work largely from home reporting on stories that would be going on without corona and stories that are uniquely corona. Some of our writers did a great story on the impact of people in the sports industry like the beer sellers and the hot dog sellers and how they’re working out, and the owners and the players who are doing a lot to help them and their charity initiatives.

Glassman ChreinGino DePinto / Verizon Media

On isolation leading to experimentation in the industry:

Reiss: Not just experimentation … but I think just like the urban myth always is you have a bunch of blackout babies that come out after a major power outage. I think you’re going to see partnerships and kind of deal babies come out of this. Because one of the most pleasing things that I’ve seen coming out of this is the sports community as a whole has come together and folks are picking up the phone, “How are you doing? What can we be doing together? Where are your pain points right now?”

Glassman Chrein: We’ve been on the phone with our partners with the leagues to see how we can find interesting content to serve them when there aren’t games going on right now. Be that archival footage or some of the things I really love to see, players talking about their favorite moments in games that have happened. 

On how sports will feel different after games resume:

Reiss: Sports in my mind, it’s going to look like Times Square in 1945, at the end of the war. It’s going to be a time that we come together and celebrate and go to ballgames together or play games together or go to bars. It’s something that I’m looking forward to a lot. There’s nothing I want more right now than to be able to go with my family to a ballgame. That is like the North Star, that for me is hanging out in the distance, is when can we go to a game together. Because that means we’re together and it means we’re doing something we love.

Glassman Chrein: One thing I hope we’ll see more of after we come out of this is that I hope we get a chance to hear more of the voice of the player. One of the things I always love to hear is what are the players doing off the field, off the court, off the ice?