Since retiring from the NBA, JJ Redick has become one of the rising stars in basketball media. But an epiphany from his days pulling double duty as a shooting guard and podcast host still drives his strategy today.
Redick’s The Old Man and the Three features interviews with the biggest stars in the NBA and even commissioner Adam Silver. But Redick knows now that relegating heavy-hitting conversations to an audio feed limits its impact and audience.
“Three and a half years ago, when I was still at The Ringer, and The Ringer finally agreed to allow us to tape a couple of our podcast interviews, we taped with Zion [Williamson] and then we taped with Jimmy Butler and Duncan Robinson,” Redick told Zach Lowe on Tuesday’s edition of The Lowe Post. “And the Duncan one came out the week after the world essentially shut down, but the realization was audio doesn’t go viral, video goes viral.”
Redick has nearly 1 million subscribers on YouTube. Recent episodes with Tim Legler, Richard Jefferson and the hosts of Point Forward tallied half a million views. Shorter clips often near a million views. The show’s Instagram account boasts nearly 200,000 followers, with another 320,000 on TikTok.
Redick’s ThreeFourTwo Productions maintains a partnership with DraftKings for exclusive NBA content on DK’s social channels and its free, ad-supported streaming channel.
At The Ringer, video has never been a major focus. Clips from top shows are posted to The Ringer’s YouTube channel or to that of its founder, Bill Simmons. And since its purchase by Spotify, the company has experimented with video in-app for shows like Higher Learning and Slow News Day, but many Ringer podcasts have no video presence at all.
NFL analyst Benjamin Solak recently launched a series on the Ringer NFL feed on Spotify featuring football film breakdowns called The Play Sheet. Episodes are also posted to YouTube. Perhaps it signals a new overture for the company.
But since leaving The Ringer in August 2020, Redick has lapped his old company in the NBA video space. It’s safe to say his realization about the value of video was right on the money.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.