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The best podcast covering all the drama around the association?
Drank Michael Smith aka Rhino, one of the biggest fucking names in the basketball content space. One point seven milli followers on TikTok, one point three milli followers on YouTube, gets more views than first take on YouTube, gets more views than your favorite fucking morning show. Why because he is a straight beast. Similarly massive followings on other social media platforms as well. He has been grinding making straight to camera video since twenty ten. That is a long
fucking time. This man's been in the internet game since longer than I think I even knew the Internet social media exists. He is basically my role model when it comes to content. Doesn't know this. I'm about to drop some info on him. One of the very first videos that I saw on TikTok that was highly successful in the sports space that I sent to my producer and said, this man is crushing, we need to diagnose what he does.
Was this man, Frank Michael Smith. I have been following you since the real reason Russell Westbrook playd so hard in the spring of twenty twenty. Frank Michael Smith.
Wow, that you just set the record for the intro. Let's go. I'm fired up right now. Sometimes you need to hear it, Trista.
I know, like you can do the intro later, but like, who knows what the intro is really going to be? Right, Like, who knows?
You know? That was beautiful. Thank you. I'm ready to dive into it. Yeah, you put the twenty ten number out there. That makes me feel old at this point. But I was grind. I was one of the first people on YouTube. I was in two thousand and eight in middle school making highlight videos and like people didn't know YouTube yet.
That's what's so crazy is the space at that point was not as saturated as it is now. And what's fascinating to me about your journey is that a lot of YouTubers that are huge they got huge because of when they started, but it was but you didn't, Like you got huge through persistence. So what do you think was the difference between what you did then and what you did now? And like how different do you think YouTube is now from when you started?
Oh my god, it's so much different. So back then, I remember I used to do these highlight videos, so it would be like Lebron James Ultimate Highlight Mix, and if you dig hard enough, you still might find one. They're not under my name, but you might find one. I was rarely ever in the actual videos. They were just like you know, highlight compilations, and they I had a cool soundtrack on there, which, by the way, is like the easiest way to start hating a song is
to put it in your video. You have to listen to it like seventy five times. So I just crushed my favorite songs. But anyway, it was all about search. I knew people were gonna search Lebron James, so I would make his highlight mix and it would get views. And you know, as a thirteen year old kid, getting like one hundred thousand views was amazing. It was like almost felt impossible, but it was happening. And now it's you know, it's so much more sophisticated. It's not really
about search anymore. It's so much more it's it's probably a better system. Now it's about watch time, loyalty, all these other things. But I mean, at the end of the day, it's still about like, hey, do people watch and like your videos? It's not that complicated.
Well in discovery too. I think the thing that's always been interesting to me as someone who came like you from you know, anonymity, right, Like wasn't I wasn't a college athlete. I didn't get plopped into the system where you get pushed. So discovery has always been something fascinating to me. How do you think if you were to start a YouTube pay today, you could take it to zero to viral differently than what you do now, Like if you were to do it in a different way, I'm.
Not sure I would do it in a different way. I could go from zero again. But it's it all comes down to value at the end of the day. And you'll hear people talk about this and it's like a pretty broad stroke to paint here, But the end of the day, like are you giving someone something interesting? Like that's what you do on this podcast. People like your podcast because you deliver value, Like you're funny, you're informational,
you're relatable. Those are all valuable things. So you know, everyone has their own different way of getting there, but you know, I know how to do that. Now so I could go from zero.
Yeah, it's crazy. It's like almost become the thing that I read. I read an article of you being interviewed, and the thing that I thought was like so fascinating and something that I struggle with a lot is like having a formula. And that sounds like for a creator, there's nothing scarier than the word formula, right, Like you feel your trap now into a box. But for what has worked for you? Have you have stuck to this recipe?
Recipe is probably the better way of putting it, because that sounds I think better and more like open and then like this is working, I'm sticking to this. Like how did you find out what that formula was?
You know? I didn't put that much thought into it. Like I've tried so many different things and most of them failed. So it wasn't like I was like, hey, like first try here, got it. But finally when I found something that did work, I knew right away. So I met my first video on TikTok. We'll get to the TikTok portion of my career. It was twenty twenty. I had worked in sports media for a couple of years out in LA started making videos on my own and I did. I did an origin story about Yiannis.
I know, it's an interesting story, a little kid growing up on the streets to Athens, trying to sell knockoff DVDs to people to make a dollar. It's amazing, really is a great story. I would see these on YouTube and they were like eight and a half minutes long. Eight it's an important number there because once you go over that, you can throw an ad in the middle. So people would stretch them out on purpose and the story would lose value because you know, it just didn't
need to take that long. I saw these and I was like, oh, I'll do that in one minute. I'll try that on TikTok. You know they limit you to one minute. It's the whole game. And it worked immediately. People really appreciated how I didn't waste their time. I told the story with forward motion. It was fast paced, and that's the whole thing about TikTok because it's a fast paced environment. So it just fit. It just fit
all of TikTok's values. People appreciated it, and I was like, Okay, now this gout to do one of these every single day, and that's the repeatability that you talked about was like, Okay, it's one thing to go viral, to have a hit, Now can you do that every day of your life? And that's what I did, Like the next two years. I don't think I missed a day.
Did you see that article that just came out about Sham's I was going to ask I read the whole Yeah, I thought that was so just for people who haven't read it. It chronicles Schams's career. He ends up getting mentored by Woes Wojenhammer now in this like Cold War as newsbreakers. But the thing that I thought was fascinating to me is that like Shams has absolutely zero work life balance. He probably will never date in any meaningful way.
He's on his phone like eighteen hours a day. Like, what was the most interesting part, because you talk about consistency, and that was the first thing I thought about when you said two years without missing a video, Like, what was the thing that you felt was compelling in that article as it relates to you in your career.
Well, Shams is born that way that stuck out. And by the way, one of my friends I went to college with him, he went to New Trier. He graduated with Shams. I saw him this week and at a wedding and he was like, you see the article on my boy Shams. And I was like, oh yeah you guys, Like were you the same year? He was like yeah, I had classes with them. I was like, was he the same way in high school? He's like the exact same way. Just loved basketball, obsessed with basketball. You know.
They mentioned this in the article like it didn't really make the teams, but was just dialed in. And they go in the article and talk about how he's you know, hey, I can't do this interview. I got class. Oh skip college. No, I'm in high school. So that's just the way he is. Like you, you can't really give advice if your sham's like you kind of have it or you don't. Not everyone's cut out for that. In my career is certainly
not as demanding. But I'm entrepreneurial by heart. Like I was the kid in high school selling snapback hats out of my locker and printing T shirts in the school art room and selling those and it was just fun for me. That's what I like to do. So when I had the chance, when I saw this video go off, I knew I had a chance here. It was fun to take that chance and be like, let's do this every day, Let's keep this rolling. It was like, you know, I was having a good time.
How long did it take for you to realize that you could monetize this?
See, I had a bit of an advantage. I worked in sports for a couple of years with clutch points right exactly. So I'll tell you a funny story. I wasn't making very much money, and so I went to my boss and I was like, hey, can I start doing some sales on the side. I got to sign some of these deals so I can get a commission check. Like LA's expensive, Trista, it's I So I was like, I got to make some extra money, like I'm stressing, Like I didn't even have a car and I live
in LA. So I was like, let me sign some of these deals.
And I got I stop you right there really fast? Did you uber everywhere? Or what did you do?
Oh? Uberpool? That was my thing? All right, Peter Uberpool, we need it back.
So you say, okay, I want to do sales.
Yeah. So I find this deal and it's with the company sports betting Dime and it was a nice deal. It was like a twenty five thousand dollars a month deal and I was scheduled to make like a couple thousand on it every month, which was like, Oh my god, this is like massive life changing money for me. And the day we signed it, we had all the ink
on the paper. The pandemic hits March badness gets shut down, the deal gets voided, and I'm out, and I was like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. This can't be happening right now. And fast forward a couple months later, I'm making my own videos. I part ways with Clutch Points. I reached back out to the same company, sportspending time, and I was like, Hey, give me a fraction of what you were about to give Clutch Points and I'll deliver. I'm getting tons of views
right now. I'll drive people where you want to drive them. And I crushed it for them. So I monetized pretty quickly. But I had some relationships in the bag.
So what do you think is the most important part of a creator going from engaging content views to Ashley delivering value.
For a brand. I mean, people have to care about you, They have to care about you, and that's like, that's one of the problems Clutch Points had was like no one really cares about the brand that much. They delivered a lot of news like hey, so and so sprains his ankle and here's the article about it, and we're gonna link you back to the website. They they couldn't have like an in person activation. They couldn't be like, hey, everybody, meet up. We're having a three v three tournament at
the park. Like people wouldn't show up. They didn't really identify with the brand. They were just in it for these little news morsels, and a lot of it was just aggregated too, like they're really shams probably like you know, there there's taking what he does. And they do have a couple guys like beat writers for the Clippers and such, but you know, that was really the business. They weren't building a relationship with their audience. They weren't fostering anything.
So when I went out of my own, I knew I can't have that. I have to show my face in these videos. I have to I have to be relatable. I have to show you know there's there's a human behind these videos. I'm not like you know some sports story machine. I have a life, so you know, people people actually appreciate that. I just started a broadcast channel on you on Instagram the other day. Thousand people joined it immediately. They care about me. So that's the answer
your question. That's how you have to transition. And like people are only gonna convert to brands or sponsor deals they care.
Yeah, and it's hard to get brands to want to jump on even if your views are big, right, Like, because how are you.
Going to do that?
Are you going to put a water mark in? Because that's not gonna get any real organic value to a brand, is it? Is it something that's like you know this Canada drive that I'm just having, Like what are like, how how do you find the Because I saw that there was a big stock X partnership that you just did where you did a scavenger hunt inside of an arena.
So that actually not stock I wanted to be stock X. Oh so what was it was?
Just you bought the Travis Scott.
Oh yeah, let me explain this. This is this is really cool. So it's totally sponsored right now stock X. If anyone's listening, pay those attention to the segment My suggestion is always to be creative with the brand deals. The brand's paying you money, you know, I think you owe it to them to at least think outside the box a little bit. It shouldn't be as simple as like, here's a candidate dry, you know, use your brain a little bit. So this isn't sponsored yet. In the future,
I hope the brands will see the creativity. But me and a fellow Pittsburgh creator. His name's Cohen Hanahan. He goes by all Hail b Ball. You might have seen his stuff before. I know you're on Basketball TikTok, so you've probably seen him. Anyway, we linked up and we were like, hey, how cool would it be if we
did a scavenger hunt at the Steelers game? And we loved it, so we went in during the pit game, which they play at Heinsfield Acrosher Stadium now and they played a week before, hit it during the pick game, took a video of us hiding it but didn't give away too much, and then promoted that we're doing this, and then it was on and we were like, hey, find the golden letter, you win the Travis Scotts and we ended up having to move the letter a little bit.
We had some logistical issues, but I stood in the corner Trista and tied my hoodie up and watched hundreds of kids dig around the concourse. It was amazing, Like to see these people in real life. It's so game changing, Like we sit behind these screens and see the views go up. Seeing it in person is like next level. I love it. So now we're doing it every week.
That's six. You came out your pocket for the Travis Scotts Bobbie the secondary market to do the activation for a potential deal that hasn't even happened yet.
Well yes, but we also get like we're building something like we also do giveaway attached to it. So if you were to like I can't make it to Pittsburgh, you go to my bill, you enter your email in and you have a chance to win another pair. So now we get everyone's email, we can create like a Koolus letter. So we're building assets attached to this. It's called the hunt. You can't talk and you can talk to