Rich Antoniello: COMPLEX Founder & CEO

Suiting Up with Paul Rabil

Paul Rabil

Sports, Business

5 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2018

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Complex is a media platform and an online community that publishes the best, most diverse and most relevant voices in pop culture. It was co-founded by Rich Antoniello and Marc Ecko in 2002. Complex Networks’ stable of brands, now owned 50/50 by Verizon and Hearst, generate over 810 million videos views a month and have a combined social following of more than 194 million users. Their millennial-driven authentic voice strives to defy the stale conversations of the past, and shift the world’s attention to the movements within convergence culture. They were born in American Pop Culture – a business built on telling the stories of subcultures and communities, and have now reshaped who the faces of mainstream are. On the show, Rich Antoniello and I discuss media trends, how to build an online community, how to monetize your network, some of the darkest challenges facing an entrepreneur, where the long-tail opportunity in sports is, the sneakerhead boom during the launch of the Air Jordan’s, and why he thinks Bo Jackson is the greatest athlete of all-time. Suiting Up is a show that explores the psychology, playbook of tools, and strategies of the most influential people in sports, entrepreneurship, and entertainment.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	And here's the thing is where the real value is to the consumer and to the
0:06.6	advertiser who wants to be part of this. Sports, you know like whether it's an
0:11.9	amazing thing of like your team one or or like an
0:15.3	underdog story it's how you it's how you feel and the lifestyle stuff makes you feel
0:21.2	more than the game itself. And to me that's where the value lies and
0:26.9	that's where I want to own it.
0:28.2	They're not a magazine company anymore and they're certainly not just a website.
0:34.0	They have millions of followers on social media.
0:37.0	They're a call to action.
0:39.0	Complex networks defies the stale conversations of the past
0:42.0	and shifts the world's
0:43.2	attention of the movements within convergence culture. They were born in
0:47.5	American pop culture, a business built on telling the stories of subcultures and
0:51.2	communities and they've now reshaped who the faces are of mainstream.
0:55.6	They garner over a billion views per month, 75 million plus unique visitors per month across
1:00.2	digital and social, and their stickiness from users to platform, their ability to
1:04.4	monetize that is their MO. And on today's show, I ask Complex Networks founder and CEO
1:10.0	Rich Antonella how he did it. We discuss media trends acquiring an audience. The challenges
1:15.8	of being an entrepreneur, where the long tail of sports lie, the launch of the air Jordans, and why he thinks
1:21.6	Bo Jackson is the greatest athlete of all time.
1:24.8	We could have wrapped for hours.
1:26.1	He's the most engaged in illuminating CEO I've ever been with.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Paul Rabil, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Paul Rabil and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.