Transcriber: Alex Santana Reviewer: Hani Eldalees
The best place to start is always with an introduction,
so it here goes, my name is Field Yates
and all roads in my life lead to Central Connecticut.
I grew up in the suburbs of Boston before enrolling at Wesleyan
in the fall of 2005.
most college freshmen,
I was that unique blend of exuberant but nervous upon arrival.
Everyone says college is the best four years of your life.
As it turned out, everyone was right.
My four years of Middletown concluded with
a major in psychology, shout out to Professor Stephen Stamler,
who really piqued my interest in the field.
But in truth, much more than that.
the friendships forged at Wesleyan have proven to be as impactful
as any I've made in my life.
As five of the groomsman in my wedding are fellow Cardinals.
In the classroom, I grew, stretched, and improved semester over semester
On the football and lacrosse fields, go Birds!
I can’t say that I become a decidedly better player, but my view from mostly
the bench was something I’ll forever cherish.
Wesleyan was the best. It remains the best.
And I’m so happy for all of you that you have the opportunity
to enjoy the special institution.
So that explains the first chapter of my life in central Connecticut.
Let’s move to chapter two, well, Bristol, Connecticut may not strike you
as the kind of town where the
worldwide leader in sports would reside, it is, in fact, home to ESPN.
For nearly nine years now, I've been fortunate enough to call ESPN,
my employer covering the NFL during that time.
The simplest way to describe what I do for a living is that I watch football
talk about it on TV. As I often refrain, it beats working.
ESPN eventually brought my wife and I to Connecticut. So here we are again.
Twenty minutes away from Wesleyan.
As I said, all roads lead back to central Connecticut.
All right, so enough of the biography stuff.
Let’s get to the talk. As you pore over ideas about how to address
an audience that may or may not have a vested interest in football,
your mind goes all over the place.
Normally, I'd zoom in for ten minutes on the depth chart of a roster,
possible draft scenarios. But today I’m zooming out as I examine
the industry at large patterns to track going forward.
My hope is to impart some ideas that might be applicable in other fields.
Question that I'm frequently asked is what I see myself doing in five years.
How about ten years from now?
It doesn't make me unique or different from most people I know.
Asking someone in his or her early 30s
what the future might hold is an icebreaker as old as time itself.
But well, for years, decades, really, a person
working in sports journalism might have been able to aspire to one day
become the back page columnist of a newspaper
or the lead anchor of a local news station.
The way in which the media industry has changed so rapidly
over the past 15 or so years has rendered the idea of mapping out
a five year plan kind of moot. And that’s where I want to focus some of our time
together today, because while the world that I live in
professionally is coverage of the National Football League
some of the dynamics involved are applicable to news and media in general,
a sector all of us are privy to on a daily basis.
As think about your daily routine,
I ask you this, what’s the first mechanism you rely upon to consume media
Subsequently, how many different mediums do you tap into on
a daily basis to consume said media?
Whereas there was a time in my life
when watching SportsCenter, usually a few times over, would catch me up on
all the events from the night before, now my day
starts with my phone. I have, run through an assortment
of apps, most of which you could likely guess. Twitter’s my source of news.
Instagram keeps me up to
my friends and all their personal lives
while other apps, such as Snapchat,
Facebook and Tiktok have a massive and overwhelming presence in
the social media space, even if I’m not personally a frequenter of any of them.
The bread and butter of my role at ESPN has long been
and will remain, linear television.
My goal every single day is to find
ways to provide entertaining, smart, insightful
and lively analysis that our viewers deem worthwhile.
But that’s not enough, there’s more.
Just as ESPN is perpetually expanding its horizon,
it is incumbent upon all of us in the media to do the same.
Think about correspondence with people that I have in my life, and how the way
in which they might access my content is so decidedly different.
What my dad may catch a report of mine while watching
the local news when they dive into sports and my nineteen year old cousin
she might just be just as apt to send me an Instagram post that shows something
I said or reported. Well, some have long refrain that content is king.
That's only part of the equation in this case.
It is about finding ways to maximize your content distribution across
a variety of platforms. Which brings us back to the quandary of
the question often asked, what do you wanna be doing in five years?
Well, for all I know, apps that are just starting to find their footing, such as
such as locker room and clubhouse, could be dominant forces within our field.
Staying ahead of the curve is
an objective in many walks of life while also representing
a challenge when you don't know what the curve ahead looks like.
The second half of the half of the quandary that
I evaluate constantly is this. It's not just knowing the means.
I had to connect with viewers, listeners, readers and followers.
It's understanding the right content to share within each of these means to which.
Well, I'm on television, a typical block,
the time between two commercials to somewhere between six to 12 minutes
factor and promos and transitions press the strong likelihood that I'm sharing
the set with at least two other people.
And by the time you do the nitty gritty math,
the amount of time I actually get to speak is probably closer to two to four
minutes per block. Television is a medium where
the opportunity cost is obvious.
If a viewer isn't interested in watching,
she or he can simply press one button and be on
a different channel instantaneously.
Our job isn't just to draw you in, it's to keep you there.
A normal portion of my work at ESPN also includes the world of podcasting.
The investment made by a listener is different here than it is in TV.
Well, there's no rule that defines how short or long a podcast is.
The bevy of my shows range from 40 to 60 Minutes,
whereas my time covering a subject on television may be limited to just
a couple of minutes. The podcasting medium allows me to empty
the bucket with exhaustive thoughts.
Anything goes if the topic du jour is covering how the Patriots,
coached by the greatest of all time
and fellow Wesleyan graduate Bill Belichick are primed for
a bounceback season in twenty twenty one.
My overall sentiment won't change from one medium to the next.
The way in which I am able to share that sentiment does.
So as I step back and think about the evolving world of media,
I ask myself what lessons I have learned that feel applicable to everyone,
not just those that work inside of it.
First of all, I'm often reminded of how now more than ever,
we all have a platform. Not a day goes by that I don't come across
a tweet from someone that I have never met and will almost assuredly never meet.
That goes viral to the nature of its content.
Hundreds of millions of people able to share thoughts, opinions,
messages and purpose via social media.
And while I'm as prone as anyone to find
a way to peruse 90 minutes of Instagram content dedicated nearly exclusively
to golden retrievers, it's also evident that social media can play
a far more influential and powerful role in matters of consequence.
That role was never more apparent than during our most recent presidential
election in many ways, including the reach it displayed
and encouraging voter turnout.
One of the most fulfilling elements of my experience at Wesleyan was gathering
new perspective from a diverse student body,
leading me to feel and experience growth on a daily basis.
I think back on that now and realize how much those that I attended school with
and those of you are at Wesleyan now have an ability to create change going forward.
So stepping back from my work in the television and media industry,
I realized the importance of being dynamic and nimble within life.
I mentioned earlier how it was frequently told to me that college was
the best four years of my life.
It was the truth is there are moments in time where I wish
for nothing more than to revisit the glorious day spent in Middletown.
And I've already reflected on
the relationships that were built during my time as a cardinal,
along with the immeasurable information taught by our wonderful faculty that
were contributing factors to why it was the experience that it was for me.
But in addition to that, and with
the benefit of 12 years of being out of college to fully understand this,
I've come to realize how much Wesleyan empowers its students to be not just
independent thinkers, but dynamic thinkers and minds as well.
As I look forward to my industry and working my hardest to be
a consistent, reliable and insightful television presence along with all
the vessels I have to share and report,
information is imperative now more than ever that
an open minded dedication to exploring what is new are essential.
The world of media is ever changing with more waves ahead of us.
That, as of right now, we're unpredictable,
keeping up with those changes
and continuing to maximize output within them presents a perpetual challenge.
But we feel ready. Thank you for your time today.