Plumber Becomes Zion Photographer
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A story about how Overtime built their basketball media brand through clever grassroots content creation.
"We needed clips faster than anybody else, so we came up with crazy ideas. On social media, we'd ask 'Who lives in South Carolina? We need a photographer.'
The number one Zion clip submitter, who gave us clips that got millions of views and helped build our multi-hundred-million dollar brand, was a plumber on weekdays who would go to the games. The number two clip submitter was a student at Zion's school who had broken his leg. Because he was in a wheelchair, they put him courtside every game instead of in the bleachers, so he had the best spot. He was submitting amazing clips on his iPhone.
ESPN would contact us asking to license our videos, offering to pay like Getty Images. Instead of taking the money, I told ESPN they could have it for free if they just tagged us and put our watermark on it. They thought we were idiots and agreed immediately. That's how Overtime ended up everywhere - we were seen as incredible because we were on ESPN all the time."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.