Episode 27: Omar Raja on creating House of Highlights, getting acquired by Bleacher Report, and leaving Bleacher for ESPN.

Boardroom Talks

Boardroom Podcast Network

Business, Entrepreneurship, Sports

4.4 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Omar Raja was a college student when he started an Instagram account to pay tribute to his beloved Miami Heat, and especially his favorite player, Dwyane Wade. That was House of Highlights, the IG account which mastered the creation of viral NBA-related clips, and transformed social media content for a new generation of sports fans. Bleacher Report hired Raja out of University of Central Florida, and acquired House of Highlights. After greatly expanding its content across multiple sports, House of Highlights under Bleacher became the most followed sports social media brand. Raja’s success caught the attention of ESPN, who hired Raja in '20 to run the social accounts for Sports Center, and work as a digital and social talent commentator. In this episode, the 26-year-old talks about catching the entrepreneurial bug from his father, why he started creating content in high school, the tears he shed walking away from House of Highlights, his goals for the future, and much more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up everybody and welcome to boardroom out of office? This is episode 27. 27 episodes, man.
0:12.6	Pretty exciting. 27 more than I thought I would be doing, but I'm excited to be doing these every week.
0:18.7	And I'm excited for everybody listening.
0:21.2	And please keep listening.
0:22.5	Keep subscribing.
0:23.8	Really appreciate all the support.
0:25.9	And 27 is actually a number that's a little bit higher than our next guest.
0:31.5	Our next guest is the incredible Omar Raja.
0:34.8	And for those who don't know, Omar created one of sports biggest platforms with
0:39.1	House of Highlights, which he started on Instagram as a college student. But then Bleacher
0:44.0	report came and acquired House of Highlights, which hired him right out of college, which is
0:49.1	incredible, man, incredible story. And then by 2019, it had surpassed ESPN in followers across all platforms.
0:58.7	So last year, ESPN came and hired him to help rebuild their connection with younger audiences.
1:04.3	And he's now running the sports center, social platforms, working as a commentator. He's really doing it all.
1:10.4	And he's going to change the landscape
1:11.6	there. I know he will. In this episode, Omar's going to break down his aspirations, drop some gems on how he
1:18.2	built his business when he was in college. And I want to hear about his next moves and what he thinks
1:22.9	about the landscape and ask for some advice, man. You know, you got to be humble enough to ask for
1:27.3	advice when people know more than you know. So I'm excited to learn and excited to hear our next guest story. So without further ado, welcome to the out-of-office podcast, Mr. Omar Raja. What's going on? I love it. Grill me all you want. I'm ready for it. I'm ready for it. Now I kind of, now I'm kind of nervous because I'm like, you know what? I should have prepared a little bit more. What are they going to grill me with? But, hey, it's better this way. I'm just going to be honest with you. I love it. You know what? You're right in line with us because the charm of our show or maybe the doom of our show is that we don't prep much either. Right. We want to learn as we're talking. So tell me, I mean,
2:02.1	tell me a little bit about obviously like, you know, within our industry, you're known for House
2:07.2	of Highlights, and then you got a very kind of well-regarded position at ESPN. But you grew up in
2:14.0	Florida and when you were, when you started your career so young.
	...

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