Sports Teams Charging for Media Access?

What happens when the economics of access in sports start to change? In this episode of Ride With Me: Walk With Me Edition, I'm walking the Las Vegas Strip and digging into a story about high school sports programs charging content creators for sideline access, and why I think it could be a signal of something much bigger. Sports teams charge broadcasters for rights. Sponsors pay for exposure. Concessionaires pay rent. Fans buy tickets. Nearly everyone pays for some form of access to the audience, the venue or the product. Except traditional media. For decades, that relationship made sense because teams needed the media's reach. But today, professional teams and leagues have massive direct audiences of their own. So what happens as that value exchange continues to shift? We also get into the exploding creator economy around youth sports, parents investing in content and highlight reels, private equity moving into youth sports, and why I believe the business model around sports access is going to evolve. And because this is Ride With Me, I also talk about my own push to create more consistently, the AI content engine I've spent the last two months building, and how turning content creation into a daily habit has changed my workflow. All while walking the Las Vegas Strip in search of Dunkin', where a $9.71 cold brew accidentally becomes the perfect ending to the entire conversation. Topics in this episode: Sports media and access Creator economy in youth sports Sideline access and content creators Sports media rights Monetizing sports assets Private equity in youth sports AI and content creation Building a consistent content habit Sports business strategy Ride With Me is an unscripted look at sports, business, marketing, content and whatever else is on my mind while I'm on the move. Subscribe for more conversations on the rapidly changing business of sports, marketing and entertainment.