Sporticast: Overtime CEO Dan Porter Talks About Disrupting Sports Leagues, Media
On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams speak with Overtime CEO Dan Porter about the changing nature of sports consumption, Overtime’s origins, and the company’s recent evolution to building its own basketball, football and boxing leagues.
Overtime was founded in 2016 by Porter and Zack Weiner as a media company catering to younger sports fans and the new ways they are consuming their favorite leagues. Younger generations tend to watch fewer games, Porter says, in favor of other types of content, such as highlights and video games. Overtime has built an audience of tens of millions, largely through social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
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Overtime’s business evolution, Porter says, came after the company established its audience and realized that big sports leagues like the NBA and NFL still wanted Overtime to pay them for their content (Porter said he thought the money should have flowed in the other direction). Instead of relying on other leagues’ IP, he says, Overtime decided to create its own. The company recently raised $100 million at a $500 million valuation.
He discusses the timing of the basketball league, Overtime Elite, which launched amid a number of drastic changes and challenges to the NCAA-led college basketball model. He also discusses the group’s investors—including lessons learned from former NBA commissioner David Stern, an early backer—and how the company is approaching the regulatory uncertainty around TikTok, where it has nearly 25 million followers.
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