00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to She Pivots. This is Michaela Hammond. Welcome back to She Pivots, the podcast where women share the bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. When Michaela Hammond was a kid, two goals were pinned on her bulletin board, play sports and work in sports. Jerry Maguire had just come out, and she knew she wanted to be a sports agent. She grew up in a proud Native family in Albuquerque, spending most of her childhood at their home Pueblo, San Felipe. She got herself to New York for college, where she played volleyball at NYU. She worked her way into the sports world, which was her dream. And then one afternoon, she found herself sobbing at her desk, wondering, should I be doing this? Today, Michaela is the co-founder and CEO of Offball, an anti-algorithmic media company about everything that happens around the game. The fandom, the fashion, the personalities, the reason fans care. Offball has grown fast with brand partnerships with Nike, WhatsApp, and Cash App, an original content deal with NBC News, and now backing from Together. Michaela tells us about Feast Day on the Pueblo and why you never turn down a plate, what it's like to let your dreams take a new shape, and what the intersection of sports and culture actually looks like. This is Michaela Hammond, and this is how she pivots. What is your name and what do you do?
00:01:45
Speaker 2: My name is Michaela Hammond, and I am the CEO and co-founder of Offball, which is a sports culture media platform.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: So Michaela, we're going to go back to the beginning. We go in chronological order. So tell us about your family. Tell us about where you grew up.
00:02:00
Speaker 2: I am so proud of where I come from, but I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I come from a very proud Native American family. Our home Pueblo is 20 miles north of Albuquerque. It's called San Felipe Pueblo. And I spent the majority of my childhood going there, participating in our customs events. My family is just like a really proud Native family. It all stems from my grandma who passed last year. She really taught us how to carry our culture, but also go out into the world and do more and see more. My mom had me when she was 19. I think that my family is full of survivors, full of people who have survived. never had a straight and narrow path, but have achieved nonetheless. And I think that watching.
00:02:46
Speaker 3: My mom, I wouldn't say struggle, but I think now I.
00:02:49
Speaker 2: Understand that she was struggling. But as a kid, you don't ever realize like the things that your parents are thinking or doing. But watching her sort of just be so committed to creating a.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: Good life for us.
00:03:01
Speaker 2: I have like that dedication and commitment just like in my core. And it's really defined everything that I've done. And that is like across the family.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: When you say carrier culture, that came from your grandmother, that was instilled in you. What did that mean to you then? What does it mean to you now?
00:03:16
Speaker 2: Being in broader business culture, going to school in New York, even in Albuquerque, like a lot of people don't engage with or understand Native American traditions and customs. You know, they're just not at the forefront of people's minds and people don't realize that there's thriving Native American communities like still across the country. It's funny, like we are one of the most conservative communities sort of traditional Pueblo Indians, which is, you know, just specifically where we're from. And we have been able to maintain our language and our customs and our beliefs in a way that other Native American communities have not just through history. And we don't have to go through American history today. So when I think about carrying my culture, it's there are just certain things, a deep sort of like confidence, sense of family, purpose, working for a greater being or cause that sort of exists outside of just your independent beliefs, really just believing in community and what that community gives you and what you give that community. And those are things that have like, propelled me through life, whether I think about them daily, or I think about them when I go home, I think that, you know, it's really special that we've been able to through the course of history, maintain our beliefs and core understanding of like our place in the world even though like the world really hasn't ever supported us or really wanted us to to maintain those traditions and so there's just like this level of like strength that's like hard to communicate in words like we have to have you to the public you have to come to a feast daily you have to see it and feel it for yourself but it is sort of this quiet strength and confidence that i definitely carry with me like every day.
00:04:59
Speaker 1: One of the goals of the show is to help paint really vivid pictures through personal stories for our listeners of different parts of whether it's culture or life experience they might not otherwise be able to see. Are there specific things that you can tell us that can really help us understand what that experience was like?
00:05:18
Speaker 3: It's a little bit difficult, but I will say that when you're growing up, there's just a certain rhythm to life and to family that is so special. Like, you know that every December 24th, like you're going to mass and you're watching ceremonial dances and you.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: Know which ones to expect. And there's 19 Pueblos in New Mexico and every single one of them has a patron saint, which has a feast day that celebrates that patron saint. And ours is May 1st. And like it is the biggest day of the year on the Pueblo. It is the one that requires the most preparation. Like I associate it with my grandma making potato salad and green chili and red chili because it's a day where every single person from every walk of life is welcome to come to the Pueblo to see the traditional ceremonial dances. and to just participate in the day. There's a carnival, there's kids running everywhere, there's snow cones being sold. It is a true party festival. I just remember the rhythm of that and it's sort of like a very open house policy. A complete stranger can walk into the house and you're like, sit down, have a meal. It's just part of how we connect and collaborate with people and we never turn people away. And then similarly, one of the things I always have to tell friends and people is like, when you go to a public house and they tell you to eat, you do not say no. Like you, it's just part of the like convening and the gathering and the prayer and everything. And so everyone's like, oh, okay. I'm like, you could be as full, like you could have had a full five course meal. You show up to a public house and they say, can you eat? You sit down and you just have a nibble of something. I just think like the open door policy, the family, the preparation every year, like, yeah, it's just a truly special experience. And it's just a time when people, It's a combination of deep prayer and deep sort of sacrifice, but also intense celebration and fun and open doors. And it taught me that like one doesn't go without the other in order to like have the celebration and the fun. It doesn't come without, I don't want to say at a cost, but without, it doesn't just come for free. You have to put in also like the work on the side to get yourself to a point where it's all part and parcel of one thing. It's not, you can't have one without the other.
00:07:34
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, that really resonates. We're recording right now, right after the Jewish holidays that I celebrated. And one of the things that has always struck me as interesting is that first we have the new year, then we atone. Like first we have Rosh Hashanah, then we atone with Yom Kippur and think about all the things we could have done better in the last year, all the things we may do better in the upcoming year. For the first time when I was explaining it to my kids this year, it kind of hit that like, If we're going to celebrate the new year and celebrate all the things that are to come, we also have to know the responsibility of thinking what we have done previously the last year we could have done better, what we will do next year. It really does come with that responsibility of that. That really resonates.
00:08:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not just all good times all the time. I think that that's life. It's like there's really great stuff, but it usually comes on the heels of not necessarily dark times or sadness, but hard work and sacrifice and coming out the other side of it. We never are like, oh, that was a great year. I learned so much. It's like, that was a tough year. I learned a lot. That is usually the time when we learn stuff is when we have to go through some sort of something.
00:08:33
Speaker 1: The very premise of this show, that that is when we change. Really get that. Exactly. And what were you like? Were you outgoing?
00:08:44
Speaker 2: I was like always a social butterfly. Like I'm always someone who's just like, where are my friends? What are they doing? Why am I not with them? Are they having fun without me? Like I have clean FOMO and I've always been that way. I've always been so even keeled, like even as a kid, like really hard to like knock off course. And I have been sports obsessed since I was, eight or nine years old I my mom makes fun of me we lived in Phoenix at the time I watched every single Arizona Diamondbacks game that season it was the 99 season and I like had a scorecard and I knew the whole roster and go to games and that's the year they won the World Series against the Yankees and yeah I just launched this like crazed sports fan.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: What was it about sports that resonated with you.
00:09:30
Speaker 2: When I was young, it's so funny how it evolves over time, especially now having worked in the industry. But when I was young and watching sports, it was pure entertainment excitement. You didn't know what was going to happen. It was wanting to be an athlete myself. I think I get a lot of thrill out of competition. And so seeing that on display, I just thought athletes were the most amazing people. I thought they did incredible things. I was always so impressed with them. And I just love... exciting games. It's so funny. My roommate in my 20s, who was not sports obsessed at all, would laugh at me because every single week I'd be like, this is a really important game. We have to tune in because it's really important. So watching sports was like entertainment and fun, but I played every single sport under the sun. You could not keep me in the house. Like I was a tomboy. I only wanted to ride bikes and play basketball. Like I was just not interested in sort of like prototypical girly stuff. It was always just like... It's just so fun. Like it just was a joy. And then, you know, Jerry Maguire came out and I was like, oh, I'm going to be a sports agent. Like I was like, that's what I'm, you know, I was definitely like molded from that. And seeing that and being like, I want to be an athlete. I want to be next to athletes. I want to work in sports. Like it totally shaped and molded my entire like worldview in life.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: I guess. So did you make decisions based on that movie, what you thought a sports agent did, how they operated?
00:10:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. I modeled all of my decisions based off of like, this is how I think you get to be a sports agent. And I didn't know, I don't know if I knew it at the time, but I think you should, I lived in obviously New Mexico. I think I should go to New York for college. I think that I should try to find any way that I can work at a sports agency. I did sports management. Like I was just like, how do I figure this out? Because my uncle was a professional athlete, but being an agent is like slightly different different like I just had no idea like how to get there but I was just like I'm gonna get there I'm gonna figure this out like I just know that if I take one step and then another step but it was all very much like no no no I want to play sports and I want to work in sports like that was like the two things on the bulletin board in my youth to high school and.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: So what were the steps that you took how did you figure out what the first step was and did you have any failed steps.
00:11:50
Speaker 2: It's kind of funny how it always like I hit the term manifesting a little bit because it's just like, oh, if I just think really hard, it's going to happen. But I do believe in like if you put something in your mind, then it will kind of randomly find its way to you. Like because I was thinking about sports day in and day out, it's like I saw this random job board posting on NYU's college job board for an internship at Excel Sports Management. And it was completely random. The set of circumstances for me to find that job posting, Excel at the time in 2004 was a three-person agency. Now they're a behemoth. They've done incredible stuff. They've grown. But at the time, they had five clients, a really great agent, but they weren't on the scene. They weren't CAA or these big agencies. And I was like, you know what? I'm just gut feeling. I'm going to intern for this company. And I didn't get paid because that was back in the age of where you could not pay people. for their work. I remember my first negotiation ever as like a semi-adult was like, you know what? Okay, you're not going to pay me, but you're going to pay for my monthly MetroCard because I got to come up here and that's what's going to happen. Me, poor college kid, can't afford the monthly MetroCard. And then once you're in, It just is like you make the connections and relationships. And I left and I went and I worked for Nike as an intern, like kind of like a perma intern again. And then I worked at Ogilvy in advertising and I just knew I wanted to be back in sports. Like I just I just knew and poor college kid right out of school living in New York, just running around. And it took me six months to get an interview. back at Excel. Like I had that like one contact and I would email him every two or three weeks be like, Hey, like, I don't know if you saw my email, but I would love to talk to whomever. And so after kind of getting exposed to the world, it just became I'm just going to keep knocking on doors until I get some foot in and then I'll figure it out.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: And did you stay at Ogilvy during that time or did you find another job?
00:13:54
Speaker 2: No, I was at Ogilvy that whole time. And I was just I was always finding my way back to sports like they were doing like one of the clients was doing a sports campaign. And I was like, oh, I'll do it. Like they were like, you know, sports, Michaela, like, you know, athletes. And I'm like, yes, please sign me up for literally anything connected with sports.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: I will do it. And your sister was also quite good at sports.
00:14:13
Speaker 2: Yes, she is. She's a pro athlete. I was like very like fit and fancy. Like I wanted to play every sport, do everything like I would play golf for a season. I'd be like, Oh, this is boring. Now I want to play tennis. So I'll play basketball. And then I finally settled on some sports I liked like she polar opposites started playing soccer when she was five and she hasn't stopped. She's a professional athlete. And she's always been just an incredibly like diligent and dedicated athlete. And I was always like, I want to play sports and have fun. But I also want to do this. And I also want to do that. But yeah, she's just an incredible player.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: Did seeing her dedicate herself to see what it took for her to go pro and to break in? Did that inform your perspective as you were coming up on the business side?
00:14:54
Speaker 2: I think that it revealed how hard you can work. Like, I always thought I was working hard when I was an athlete. Like, I wasn't mailing it in intentionally. But I realized that there's always sort of extra time you can put in. Being so about something that nothing really else takes over or takes precedent, I definitely carried that with me, especially my early tenure at Excel Sports. At the time when I came back to Excel Sports in 2012, it had grown from maybe a four or five person company to like a 17 person company. So it was still very small. And the wild, wild west, everyone was wearing a million hats, doing everything. I just threw myself completely into the job. Like that became my whole everything because it was the opportunity of a lifetime, in my opinion.
00:15:42
Speaker 1: And it was what I mean.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: from Jerry Maguire in the mid 90s to now like I did it like I made it through that whole thing. That's when I realized, oh, you have to have another gear. There's a lot of work. There's a lot of stuff you thought working from nine to eight was cool. We'll try 10, try 11pm, try getting midnight, try like a million days of travel. I think like what Madison always showed me, my sister is that extra gear exists. You just have to like make the conscious decision that you want to go there.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: Madison Hammond, by the way, was the first Native American player in NWSL history. She plays for the Utah Royals now, and she and Mikayla both have that same competitive tenacity that has allowed them to excel. Coming up, what sports agents actually do all day, how Mikayla talked a roomful of people into letting Blake Griffin run around fake naked on Broad City, a Twitter AMA with Derek Jeter, and what happens after you hit the goal on your bulletin board. Be right back. Please illuminate our audience and me, by the way. What is the difference between like an agent and a manager versus, you know, like why are all these firms here? What are they all doing?
00:17:11
Speaker 2: If you think about an athlete as a company, you would have a CEO of the company. You would have obviously all these different business roles that keep the company running and help it grow and help it achieve new revenue targets and all the things that we're so accustomed to in the business space. If you think about it and apply it in a way to an athlete as a business, there are similar roles, which is there are... People who are purely concerned with like, how do we make money? And that's, I would put like agents in that category of like, how are we going to make money? How are we going to position you to get a contract from a team to maintain your status within a professional league? We always think about leagues in terms of their stars, but there's a whole host of players who are fighting for roster spots, who are fighting for time and attention from coaches, from teams. And the agents play a critical role in advancing the sort of on-ball or on-court, on-field positioning of a player. That is their livelihood and that is the business's sort of like how it moves forward. My role was much more on what we'll call like plus roles. areas of an athlete, which is how do we get them more money from endorsements? How do we get them more money from business partnerships? What do they want to do? How do they want to become, you know, a humanitarian, a business person, become really well known in fashion? I think when I started in the business, athletes were very much not considered to be sort of cultural leaders. I think that was very much the shut up and dribble era. It was the athletes don't have anything of value to say beyond, you know, X's and O's. It's hard to like remember that now. And it's weird that we've seen such a shift in the past 15 years. But now it's like I was sort of in the middle of that evolution of no athletes do have more to say. And athletes can be extremely important to the cultural conversation that has nothing to do with their sport. And so that is what people in my role tend to do is think about how to expand what an athlete is and does beyond just like you dribble or play basketball.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: How did you nurture that? Can you give us some specific examples?
00:19:24
Speaker 2: So I worked with a number of NBA athletes and all athletes, they all have just incredible hopes and dreams and aspirations. I think they're extremely multidimensional and they have like deep, deep thoughts about fashion or art or entertainment. And I, you know, the whole like jock that doesn't really like have much going on. I quickly learned like after working with them, that there's a lot to do. And I think one example in specific is You know, I used to work with Blake Griffin and he was the funniest athlete I've ever worked with, like just naturally hilarious. And he wanted to do more in comedy and he had amazing connections in comedy. And I think what's really interesting is there's so many little barriers along the way that could potentially like break down a good idea. And so he really wanted to be in a show at the time called Broad City. I don't know if you remember Broad City. It was an amazing Comedy Central show. So hilarious. Alana Glazer was like my hero.
00:20:27
Speaker 1: We've had Alana on this show. Oh, amazing.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: Okay, great. So one of my claims to fame is she looked at me and she was like, you're so cool. And I was like, oh my God, that is the best thing anyone's ever said to me. But he wanted to be on Broad City. And the show was, you know, at the time, a little raunchy, a little bit like colored outside the lines. Definitely wasn't like the prim and proper show where, you know, it wasn't going to make a dick joke or, you know, talk about that. And so there was like real internal conversation had about whether Blake should do this show. you know, he had endorsement deals. Should he be doing sort of like these silly kind of like outside of the lines comedy things? And obviously you're not going to compromise sort of the creative of the show. And I personally sort of saw an incredible opportunity, like if because of the way that Broad City was received by the culture, by the by the way that it was received by comedians, by the sort of entertainment, like if he's on that show, like that's not like, oh, I did a guest appearance on like some late night skit. Like that's like a legit comedy show. Yeah, I think that some of the powers that be are always, you know, they're always coming from a much more conservative position of like, you needed someone on the team who understood that him doing this show, no one's going to take it literally. Like people understand that it's comedy. And so I was able to massage the conversations to be like, he should do this and it's okay. And there's not going to be this crazy downside. And so we did the show and the entire skit was him and Alana being naked together and doing like non-sexual sex activities. And I was like, oh God, I really hope I'm not going to regret this decision.
00:22:03
Speaker 1: You're like, this is definitely going to go in one of two directions.
00:22:07
Speaker 2: And, you know, it was incredible. And literally the response at the time was like, oh, Blake was on Broad City. Like he's a legit comedian guy. He's legit. He's not like floating in. And it was a great response. And nobody cared that he was like, you know, running around like fake naked with Alana Glazer. It was just all, it just all built his credibility in that space. And it's just an example of like those, itty bitty like decisions and things that can happen on the course of killing a good idea or like sanding it down to a level where it's just not going to carry the same meaning. And I think that I was really fortunate to be in the seat when like a number of those decisions had to be made because I was younger, had a different background and could see the board a little bit differently. I was able to like advance conversations around things that I think most people would have either just like walked away from because they just didn't understand it or would have, like I said, taken it down so far to like the component parts that it's like it's no longer meaningful.
00:23:17
Speaker 1: You've now become Jerry Maguire. You did it. You accomplished your goal. Did you have that moment of realization or you were just so caught up in the excitement of all of it that you didn't really pause to give yourself that moment of recognition?
00:23:30
Speaker 2: No pause. I think it was like, oh, I did it. I took a pay cut. I was so broke. I was working seven days a week. I worked retail on the weekends because like, I mean, at the time it was like a $ 5, 000 pay cut, but to a 23, 24 year old, that's a significant amount of money. And my mom was like, I don't think you should do that. And I'm like, I just have to do it. I have to see what this is like, what this world is like. It's been on the bulletin board, you know, for forever. So then once I got there, it was almost, it was less like I did it and a little bit more of like, oh shit, what now? Yeah, like a little bit more of like, oh, now I have to prove that I'm worthy of this space. Now I have to prove that I belong here and that I am going to add value and figure this all out. And so that was like the speed at which I operated for a good number of years, which was just like take no prisoners must prove that I'm worth being here a little bit of imposter syndrome of just like, Am I supposed to be here? Like, am I supposed to be in the seat making these decisions and negotiating this and doing that and being there? But then I was like, oh, yeah, no, I'm pretty good at this.
00:24:39
Speaker 1: Did you have like a moment that it clicked or just after all you looked around, you're like, I know more than these people like I'm supposed to be here.
00:24:45
Speaker 2: I don't think it was a specific moment, but it was just earned time. And I think that that's like, you're like, oh, there's this crisis happening. Like, I'm not going to spiral. I'm okay. Like, we've done this before. So-and-so's calling because they're upset about this. Like, it's okay. Like, it would just be, I remember this woman that I used to work with joined and it was like her first month and she was a veteran and executive. And then I was sitting at my desk and I was just like, so stressed out right now. And she looked at me and she was just like, couldn't tell like it literally was like nothing, nothing was going on. And I was like, I was like, Oh, yeah, no, lots happening. I just think like, kind of going back to the way I was since a kid, like I've just always been able to take things on the chin and remain really even keeled. But yeah, there was no specific moment that I was like, Oh, yeah, I got this shit. It was just more so it became easier. Like the things just became easier.
00:25:36
Speaker 1: Do you remember ever getting a call where like, oh, like it's this person calling me. I cannot believe this person is calling me right now.
00:25:43
Speaker 2: I mean, I did a lot of work with Derek Jeter during the latter half of his career when he was about to retire. He was definitely an athlete where I was just like, holy shit. Like I'm working with Derek Jeter right now. And we launched the Players Tribune in 2014, the day after he retired. And one of the first things we did, which was sort of like our idea was this was again, different era was like, let's do a Twitter AMA. Like nobody knows anything about Derek. Let's do a Twitter AMA so that we can just have fun with fans and people. They can learn more about him. And so there's this great picture of me and him and the one other guy that was doing it with us. And it's just us. And like, I look back on that. I'm like, that was that was like a very amazing thing to be a part of. Yeah.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: And what was the Players Tribune?
00:26:30
Speaker 2: But Players Tribune was a media company started by Derek Jeter and a fellow co-founder, Jamie Messler, in 2014 that was athlete first person editorial. So it was athletes with a ghostwriter writing about everything from Blake Griffin wrote about Donald Sterling's white party. Danica Patrick wrote about dating a fellow driver. It was really athletes talking about whatever it is they wanted to talk.
00:26:56
Speaker 1: About.
00:26:57
Speaker 2: And it was an incredible platform. And I remember like people saying athletes are never going to do this. They're never going to lean in and do this. I mean, it became the platform where Kobe announced his retirement, where Kevin Durant announced he was going to the Golden State Warriors. Kevin Love wrote about mental health and suffering from panic attacks for the first time. Like it became a really important place for athletes to talk about things that were important to them. It was very illuminating to see how media companies go from a one line in a deck. That's just an idea going from that to a full fledged brand that meant so much to so many athletes and the broader sport community.
00:27:36
Speaker 1: Do you think that informed or planted a seed for you around storytelling and sport?
00:27:41
Speaker 2: For sure. I think I always had this thought about athletes being able to own more of the cultural conversation. And then this just was like the true like, oh, like, this was true. Like people really care when athletes if you do it in the right way. And if what they say is authentic and meaningful to them. that people will respond and people will see things in a new light. I think what it taught me is like, one, you can sniff out when people are speaking as if they're on like a press tour versus when it's something that is like deeply important to them. You can tell and feel and see the difference. You can tell and feel like, oh, this is going to work. This matters versus like, I don't know if anyone's going to care about this. I think that discernment that I learned just through like watching the response and seeing how people talked about it definitely informed how I see media now and how I see sort of that same barometer we have. Like we are such a highly educated media consumers. Like we can spot bullshit from a mile away. Like I... think that that all came from like this era of obviously social media and people communicating aspects of themselves more broadly. And now we've just come through the other side where it's like, I can tell when you're going through the motions, I can tell when something's really important to you. And I can tell when you're feeding me bullshit. That nuance and understanding is definitely like what informs like how I think about content and storytelling and media today. And it's like, it's so hard to get people to just be honest. And it's like, it's also because we take things too seriously too. It's like if somebody says something and it's not exactly the way that we want to hear it at the time, that's like the way that everyone's talking about something. There was a lot of times when people would get severe backlash and then they never want to talk again because they're like, this is not worth it.
00:29:31
Speaker 1: A lot of that, for sure.
00:29:33
Speaker 2: There has to be a true clarity around what is the benefit to me for doing this. if people in general, like, celebrity or not, don't have like really firm confidence and like I see the clear benefit here, then it's like, yeah, why would you do it?
00:29:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, why would you expose yourself and risk saying not everything exactly 100% right? No, totally. The Players' Tribune taught Michaela something she still uses every day. People can tell when an athlete is reading talking points and when they actually mean it. Genuine storytelling is everything. After the break, Michaela will tell us about a pivotal cry at her desk, a move to L.A. where good ideas kept going nowhere, and the soccer term that turned into a company. We'll get there right after the break. Okay, so how did we build to what has now become Offball?
00:30:38
Speaker 2: You know, I was excited to chat with you in this sort of like pivot mindset because it was probably one of the more consequential decisions in my life that I don't think I realized at the time, but I do now for sure to leave Excel. I mean, you heard it was the bulletin board. It was I all I wanted to do was be at an agency and be an agent. I'd been there for seven or eight years. And then I just, you know, they had that moment where I finally had like reached the end of my road. Like, I remember I was in the car driving back in college. crazy traffic from the Hamptons with an athlete who was doing an appearance. And then on the way, I got a text that one of the other clients I worked with was being traded and a complete surprise, like blindsided everybody. Then I got back to my desk and I couldn't reveal anything couldn't share anything obviously it was with a different client like you know you just kind of kept it whatever and then i got back to my desk and i just remember like sobbing and just being like oh my god i had to just do all this and now i'm going to have to think about what comes next for this client who's going to be like you're the support system a lot of times for families and so having to like gear up to do that i i was like oh man i don't know how i'm gonna do this and that was sort of the first kernel of like maybe i shouldn't do this and I miss working with athletes directly still, but it was just a like, you know, I have a lot of ideas and I have a lot of things that I want to do. Maybe it's time to just spread my wings and explore. I can always come back. Like, that's always kind of like my thing. I can always come back. And I got a job in LA and it was one of those things where it's like, I need you out here in like six weeks. And I was like, you know what?
00:32:19
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:32:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wanted to get out of New York. I'd been there for almost 13 years. And I was like, if I don't leave New York, I'm going to be here forever. And like, I moved a lot when I was a kid. So the idea of like being in New York for 15, 20 years, I was like, no way. I was like, I gotta like go explore a different city. I gotta do something different. Just new job. I was just like, you know what? I think it's time. Maybe it was premature. Maybe I should still be at Excel. I don't know. But it was like such a consequential decision. So that was my big pivot moment of just like leaving the lifetime aspiration behind to pursue other passion areas, which was content, storytelling and athletes. That's what my tenure at Excel taught me. It was like, I really care and I'm passionate about how people convey their stories.
00:33:07
Speaker 1: I find that sometimes people are leaving something when they pivot and sometimes they're going towards something. It's like there's something they want to do. It sounds like yours was sort of a mixture of both. Like you were trying to leave behind the lifestyle that you had with the job and you were going towards like you already had an idea in mind of something that you wanted to do. How quickly did it come together for you?
00:33:30
Speaker 2: It took many years. I had a couple of false starts around businesses and ideas to try to get off the ground. What really changed is I met a co-founder of Offball and he and I started building and working together on a different company entirely. But through that work was where Offball was born, was just our collaboration and conversations and nuanced understanding of media and athlete and content and culture. It was really like born out of a like, man, there's so much good content and storytelling. And the culture of sport is like really becoming more and more and more important, but it's becoming harder and harder to find. So that was the real kind of like light bulb moment. But it was this I'm a big collaborator. Like I believe in brainstorms and talking to people and talking things through and interrogating things. And like, even if it's just interrogating things to interrogate them, because it helps me wrap my head around it. Straw man arguments that like make no sense. I was like, Makayla, why are we talking about this? And I'm like, because like, maybe there's something there. And it was through all of those conversations that we just had a sort of aha moment of like, you can create a media company that is based around sports culture, which is a passion. The audience is accelerating and exponentially growing, even though it's already as dominant as it is as a cultural force that brands and celebrity and talent like they want to be engaged in, but that the consumer experience is just really warmth in. People are sick of negativity. People are sick of being force-fed content that they didn't necessarily sign up for or that the algorithm has just determined today is like, everyone's going to see this particular story. We wanted to create something that had a level of taste and a level of cultural authority to say like, this is interesting. You should be paying attention to this. But also that was positive. I think we're all so tired of like, the pile on. You know, we joke internally at Offball that we are like the kind of like the internet's like hype machine in sport. We're just like, you're really cool. What you do is awesome. And it comes from a place of like, we genuinely think that I think we just wanted to make space for that.
00:35:44
Speaker 1: What was the company that you were trying to work on with your co founder that became Offball? What were some of the other fits and starts you had?
00:35:51
Speaker 2: Well, before I started working with co-founder Offball, I was working on a company called Co-Laboratory, which was a athlete studio model. At the time, this was 2017, 2018. When all these athletes, they wanted production companies. They wanted to tell their own stories. It was the height of all of these streamers coming online and going on a buying spree and buying all of these sports documentaries and sports stories before new media took hold. And we wanted to create a company that basically allowed them to get from A to Z much faster, allowed them to get the resources and connections to get their ideas and their production companies off the ground. I think it was a great idea. Like I think there are companies doing that now that are helping athletes or helping independent people get their production companies or entertainment companies like off of the ground. One thing I learned that I did not like about Hollywood when I moved to LA was that great ideas just don't happen. Like I was so confused. I was like, wait, we're going to sit in a room and you like it. You like it. It's amazing. Buyers love it. And then it just doesn't go anywhere. And I was like, I don't understand this. I was like, wait, I don't get it. I was like, now usually it's like, okay, when are we launching? Roll it out. Boom, done. And it just didn't happen. And so I was like, I got to get out of here. I was like, this is not built for the way that I operate and think about things. But that was a little bit of like why it was fits and starts with the company. It's like, you'd have a great idea. You'd have the right people attached. You'd have the right producer and all the things you need. And then it would just not happen. And then COVID hit. And that I think was just a reorientation for everybody. And that's when I met the co-founder of Offball. And he and I were working on building an advisory business that does comms and brand strategy and sports and tech and business. And it was through our collaboration that we came up.
00:37:40
Speaker 1: What was it when you had the aha moment? You're like, OK, now we've hit it. Now we know what the company is going to be.
00:37:45
Speaker 2: I think the aha moment was we had the idea and I find this always happens. Like you have the idea and then you start executing the idea and then the idea changes because you realize when you're executing it, like, oh, that doesn't work. Oh, that doesn't work. Oh, maybe we should tweak it this way. Maybe we should tweak it that way. That's my favorite thing to do is to pressure test and go through like what you think is a good idea and then put it into reality and be like, I don't like this or I do love this or whatever. That's it. And I think that with off ball, I mean, one, when we came up with the name, that's always a great moment because you're like, oh, we have this thing. It's so great. And but then off ball, like actually came from like my many, many hours of watching my sister play soccer because off ball is a term in soccer for the action that's happening outside of the point of where the ball is. It's also a term in basketball, obviously, but it's like all the things happening around the direct point of play. And I was like, that's it. That's what this is like. And it just clicked. And then we had a great branding agency. All right, I will show that shop now. They're Brooklyn. They're amazing. They were able to take that thought and put it into a brand and an idea. And they came up with this great mascot that we call Bali, who is just like that fun, playful mascot. person running around in sports. And that's when it was like, okay, we have a thing. This feels different. It looks different. It doesn't look like anything else that's currently operating in sort of like that convergence of sports and culture. And that's when I felt like, okay, we have a thing.
00:39:22
Speaker 1: Offball launched in September, 2024, a website, newsletters, and social feeds about the culture of sports curated by academic humans, no clickbait, and no unnecessary negativity. Mikayla built Off-Ball for mainstream casual sports fans who want to get excited and be involved in fandom, the ones who came for a tunnel fit or a comeback story and stayed for the game, the ones who are invested in the culture. So I asked Mikayla how she defines that intersection of sports and culture. When you say the convergence of sport and culture, what does that mean to you? I think everybody, you know, you hear everyone talking about, oh, women's sports is having a moment, sports is having a moment. And I think people struggle to define it. How do you define it?
00:40:07
Speaker 2: I define it as almost like the pop culture conversation around sports. If you were, you're not a sports fan, let's pretend like you're not a sports fan.
00:40:16
Speaker 1: I was like, me? No, I'm in, I'm all in.
00:40:20
Speaker 2: You and i are sitting down and we're watching a game and you're like what is this game like who cares about this game and i tell you two or three things to get you super engaged in the game this guy is coming back from an injury and he's beloved by everybody and he's everyone's favorite player etc or he's dating taylor swift and like it's the most incredible thing ever like i'm Those things to me are the culture of sports, the things that bring us into the game that have nothing to do with how a player performed or how a team is performed or like the on-field narrative. It's not just fashion and sports. You know, it's the things that I think collectively help us understand like why we're passionate about the game. Like we're passionate about it because Rory McIlroy has never won a Masters before. And then he won the Masters. And that is an incredible moment that like I as a non diehard golf fan can like get behind the Knicks winning the championship. Like that is obviously derived from what's happening on the field. But it's just that collective, exciting feeling that brings everyone together around the game. So we spend a lot of time at Offball talking about fandom, talking about the interesting ways people are talking about sports. Obviously, I think a big part of it is diving into the personalities of the athletes and their interests, whether it's fashion or entertainment, music, and why somebody who might not be a superstar is a really compelling person that you should be paying attention to. I hope that's a more interesting version of this convergence of sports and culture than you've heard before.
00:41:52
Speaker 1: For sure. What are your conclusions about fandom or the thoughts that you're having?
00:41:59
Speaker 2: I think fandom is such a fun and uniting thing, especially in our current culture. Like you and I can sit down and I can say like, who are your teams? And you can be like Gotham and the Liberty and I can be like the Aces and the Utah Royals because that's where my sister plays. And we can just chit chat about our favorite teams for forever. It's just a positive feeling. It brings excitement to people. And I think it's like a genuine fun thing. Like I, I'm a big soccer fan. So my, my thing is like, I start talking to people and they mentioned that they casually watch soccer. I'm like, who's your team? Yeah.
00:42:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker 2: And, and. And everyone's like, oh, I'm an Arsenal fan. And then I have to reveal that I like Man City. And I think fandom in all its shapes and forms is just a really fun and exciting thing to bring people together. And I know that sounds like really cheesy in today's day and age, but... It's just a fun feeling. And it's like, hopefully off ball is a place where you can tap into that feeling of like being a true fan because being a true fan isn't negative and it isn't takedown. It's honest. It's like, oh, that team didn't play well or like he's been sucking right now. We're fans because it makes us excited and it makes us feel good and we get passionate about it. And I think that those are the feelings from a very esoteric perspective that we hope to continue to like tap into.
00:43:15
Speaker 1: Well, I put a lot of thought into why does someone wear team merchandise? Like, why does someone purchase it and why do they wear it? Ultimately, people wear it because they want to convey something about themselves. They want the people around them to know that they are part of this fandom. And why? Like, if we really kind of think about that, why does that matter? You're conveying that you are part of something. You are part of this fan base and it says something about yourself. And that's like an interesting part of fandom as well. It's like, why do we care that other people know what we just do? Why be a.
00:43:44
Speaker 2: Fan if you're not going to let people know about it? People who are interested, even interested in sports. It's like, you know, we have this series at Offball called Origin Stories because I think people come to fandom in very interesting ways. Like, how did, like, why are you such a fan of the Knicks? And it's always touched to something personal that happens in their lives that is relevant and exciting to them. Even if it's like, oh, my girlfriend or my spouse or my partner is a huge fan of this team and they watch it all the time. So now I'm a fan. Like it's always these like really interesting, like my dad took me to a game once and now I'm a huge, it's just like a inside out core memory moment where it's like, oh, this is my team. And yeah, it's just like fun to root for things. It's just fun. Even if you don't even care, like you're like, oh, the WNBA finals are on, even though both my teams are in it, I'm rooting for this player or I'm rooting for this team. Cause it's just you having a rooting interest is inherently a good time.
00:44:38
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. It makes it way better. What is something that at some point you saw as a low point and now you see it as having really launched you to the success you are today?
00:44:46
Speaker 2: Wow. What a question. I mean, I think it is a little bit of that like crying at the desk. You know, I think it's what the crying at the desk moment and sort of that whole summer. What it pushed me to was recognizing that I do have limits and I'm not superwoman and I can't just keep on keeping on. And that you don't have to keep doing the things you don't want to do just because you're doing them. Like, I think sometimes you get caught into this, like, well, this is who I am. And this is what I do. And this is what I worked for. And I think that it takes a little bit of I don't even know, just like random courage to be like, maybe I don't. And then how do I get that same sort of like fulfillment? from something else, even though like I'm a career-oriented person. I love building. I love working really hard. But I think that moment taught me like I have my limits, but then also taught me like I can do more. I can do more things. I have more ideas. And it pushed me out the door to pursue them. But I also like loved working with athletes. It was an amazing time in my life. And like I said, I'm like, oh, I'll come back. But in the interim, off-ball, the response that people have to the company and the way that we're approaching the sports conversation is just really exciting. We're humbled every time that someone's like, I love your stuff. I love your newsletter. I follow you. I'm such a big fan. And we take that really seriously in terms of like, we are trying to create something that is uniquely different in this in a very crowded space. While we aren't always 100% unique and different, like we try to be, And I think that like all of like the learned experience of the fits and starts, the random ideas you have that work, the pressure testing, all the things you learn in your career is like definitely helping me like push off all forward and push it to different spaces.
00:46:39
Speaker 1: Do you think you'll pivot again?
00:46:41
Speaker 2: Fascinating. I'm always open to a pivot. I don't know. I'm such a like here and now live in the present, take it one step at a time person. ask me in five years and be like, did you pivot? I, but yeah, I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure another pivot is coming for me.
00:47:01
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Michaela. It's been great to have you on.
00:47:04
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:47:04
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
00:47:05
Speaker 2: This was great. It was so fun.
00:47:09
Speaker 1: You don't have to keep doing the things you don't want to do just because you're doing them. Michaela worked toward the things she had pinned on her bulletin board from the time she was a kid and she got there. Then she She let herself take it down. She's still in sports, but now she's standing somewhere she never planned to stand because it didn't exist yet. It goes back to the feast day she told us about at the top of the episode. The celebration doesn't come for free. You do the work, you keep the door open, and you approach obstacles with community and authenticity. Michaela's story is a reminder that if something on your own bulletin board doesn't fit anymore... you're allowed to take it down or at least move it over a little to make room for new dreams to take shape. You can find Offball at offball.news. Happy Indigenous Peoples Day and I'll see you next Wednesday. Thanks for listening to She Pivots. If you like this episode, follow the show so you never miss a pivot story and share it with one woman in your life who might need to hear it. To learn more about our guests and join our community, follow us on Instagram at shepivotsthepodcast. are subscribed to our sub stack for exclusive content and behind the scenes conversations. You can also find us at shepivotspod.com. This episode was produced and edited by Paige Davis-Janot with sound editing and mixing by Nina Pollack, logistics and planning by Emma Stopik and Kendall Krupkin, research by Christine Dickinson. She Pivots is proud to be a part of the iHeart Podcast Network. I endorse She Pivots.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to She Pivots. This is Michaela Hammond. Welcome back to She Pivots, the podcast where women share the bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. When Michaela Hammond was a kid, two goals were pinned on her bulletin board, play sports and work in sports. Jerry Maguire had just come out, and she knew she wanted to be a sports agent. She grew up in a proud Native family in Albuquerque, spending most of her childhood at their home Pueblo, San Felipe. She got herself to New York for college, where she played volleyball at NYU. She worked her way into the sports world, which was her dream. And then one afternoon, she found herself sobbing at her desk, wondering, should I be doing this? Today, Michaela is the co-founder and CEO of Offball, an anti-algorithmic media company about everything that happens around the game. The fandom, the fashion, the personalities, the reason fans care. Offball has grown fast with brand partnerships with Nike, WhatsApp, and Cash App, an original content deal with NBC News, and now backing from Together. Michaela tells us about Feast Day on the Pueblo and why you never turn down a plate, what it's like to let your dreams take a new shape, and what the intersection of sports and culture actually looks like. This is Michaela Hammond, and this is how she pivots. What is your name and what do you do?
00:01:45
Speaker 2: My name is Michaela Hammond, and I am the CEO and co-founder of Offball, which is a sports culture media platform.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: So Michaela, we're going to go back to the beginning. We go in chronological order. So tell us about your family. Tell us about where you grew up.
00:02:00
Speaker 2: I am so proud of where I come from, but I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I come from a very proud Native American family. Our home Pueblo is 20 miles north of Albuquerque. It's called San Felipe Pueblo. And I spent the majority of my childhood going there, participating in our customs events. My family is just like a really proud Native family. It all stems from my grandma who passed last year. She really taught us how to carry our culture, but also go out into the world and do more and see more. My mom had me when she was 19. I think that my family is full of survivors, full of people who have survived. never had a straight and narrow path, but have achieved nonetheless. And I think that watching.
00:02:46
Speaker 3: My mom, I wouldn't say struggle, but I think now I.
00:02:49
Speaker 2: Understand that she was struggling. But as a kid, you don't ever realize like the things that your parents are thinking or doing. But watching her sort of just be so committed to creating a.
00:03:00
Speaker 1: Good life for us.
00:03:01
Speaker 2: I have like that dedication and commitment just like in my core. And it's really defined everything that I've done. And that is like across the family.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: When you say carrier culture, that came from your grandmother, that was instilled in you. What did that mean to you then? What does it mean to you now?
00:03:16
Speaker 2: Being in broader business culture, going to school in New York, even in Albuquerque, like a lot of people don't engage with or understand Native American traditions and customs. You know, they're just not at the forefront of people's minds and people don't realize that there's thriving Native American communities like still across the country. It's funny, like we are one of the most conservative communities sort of traditional Pueblo Indians, which is, you know, just specifically where we're from. And we have been able to maintain our language and our customs and our beliefs in a way that other Native American communities have not just through history. And we don't have to go through American history today. So when I think about carrying my culture, it's there are just certain things, a deep sort of like confidence, sense of family, purpose, working for a greater being or cause that sort of exists outside of just your independent beliefs, really just believing in community and what that community gives you and what you give that community. And those are things that have like, propelled me through life, whether I think about them daily, or I think about them when I go home, I think that, you know, it's really special that we've been able to through the course of history, maintain our beliefs and core understanding of like our place in the world even though like the world really hasn't ever supported us or really wanted us to to maintain those traditions and so there's just like this level of like strength that's like hard to communicate in words like we have to have you to the public you have to come to a feast daily you have to see it and feel it for yourself but it is sort of this quiet strength and confidence that i definitely carry with me like every day.
00:04:59
Speaker 1: One of the goals of the show is to help paint really vivid pictures through personal stories for our listeners of different parts of whether it's culture or life experience they might not otherwise be able to see. Are there specific things that you can tell us that can really help us understand what that experience was like?
00:05:18
Speaker 3: It's a little bit difficult, but I will say that when you're growing up, there's just a certain rhythm to life and to family that is so special. Like, you know that every December 24th, like you're going to mass and you're watching ceremonial dances and you.
00:05:35
Speaker 2: Know which ones to expect. And there's 19 Pueblos in New Mexico and every single one of them has a patron saint, which has a feast day that celebrates that patron saint. And ours is May 1st. And like it is the biggest day of the year on the Pueblo. It is the one that requires the most preparation. Like I associate it with my grandma making potato salad and green chili and red chili because it's a day where every single person from every walk of life is welcome to come to the Pueblo to see the traditional ceremonial dances. and to just participate in the day. There's a carnival, there's kids running everywhere, there's snow cones being sold. It is a true party festival. I just remember the rhythm of that and it's sort of like a very open house policy. A complete stranger can walk into the house and you're like, sit down, have a meal. It's just part of how we connect and collaborate with people and we never turn people away. And then similarly, one of the things I always have to tell friends and people is like, when you go to a public house and they tell you to eat, you do not say no. Like you, it's just part of the like convening and the gathering and the prayer and everything. And so everyone's like, oh, okay. I'm like, you could be as full, like you could have had a full five course meal. You show up to a public house and they say, can you eat? You sit down and you just have a nibble of something. I just think like the open door policy, the family, the preparation every year, like, yeah, it's just a truly special experience. And it's just a time when people, It's a combination of deep prayer and deep sort of sacrifice, but also intense celebration and fun and open doors. And it taught me that like one doesn't go without the other in order to like have the celebration and the fun. It doesn't come without, I don't want to say at a cost, but without, it doesn't just come for free. You have to put in also like the work on the side to get yourself to a point where it's all part and parcel of one thing. It's not, you can't have one without the other.
00:07:34
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, that really resonates. We're recording right now, right after the Jewish holidays that I celebrated. And one of the things that has always struck me as interesting is that first we have the new year, then we atone. Like first we have Rosh Hashanah, then we atone with Yom Kippur and think about all the things we could have done better in the last year, all the things we may do better in the upcoming year. For the first time when I was explaining it to my kids this year, it kind of hit that like, If we're going to celebrate the new year and celebrate all the things that are to come, we also have to know the responsibility of thinking what we have done previously the last year we could have done better, what we will do next year. It really does come with that responsibility of that. That really resonates.
00:08:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not just all good times all the time. I think that that's life. It's like there's really great stuff, but it usually comes on the heels of not necessarily dark times or sadness, but hard work and sacrifice and coming out the other side of it. We never are like, oh, that was a great year. I learned so much. It's like, that was a tough year. I learned a lot. That is usually the time when we learn stuff is when we have to go through some sort of something.
00:08:33
Speaker 1: The very premise of this show, that that is when we change. Really get that. Exactly. And what were you like? Were you outgoing?
00:08:44
Speaker 2: I was like always a social butterfly. Like I'm always someone who's just like, where are my friends? What are they doing? Why am I not with them? Are they having fun without me? Like I have clean FOMO and I've always been that way. I've always been so even keeled, like even as a kid, like really hard to like knock off course. And I have been sports obsessed since I was, eight or nine years old I my mom makes fun of me we lived in Phoenix at the time I watched every single Arizona Diamondbacks game that season it was the 99 season and I like had a scorecard and I knew the whole roster and go to games and that's the year they won the World Series against the Yankees and yeah I just launched this like crazed sports fan.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: What was it about sports that resonated with you.
00:09:30
Speaker 2: When I was young, it's so funny how it evolves over time, especially now having worked in the industry. But when I was young and watching sports, it was pure entertainment excitement. You didn't know what was going to happen. It was wanting to be an athlete myself. I think I get a lot of thrill out of competition. And so seeing that on display, I just thought athletes were the most amazing people. I thought they did incredible things. I was always so impressed with them. And I just love... exciting games. It's so funny. My roommate in my 20s, who was not sports obsessed at all, would laugh at me because every single week I'd be like, this is a really important game. We have to tune in because it's really important. So watching sports was like entertainment and fun, but I played every single sport under the sun. You could not keep me in the house. Like I was a tomboy. I only wanted to ride bikes and play basketball. Like I was just not interested in sort of like prototypical girly stuff. It was always just like... It's just so fun. Like it just was a joy. And then, you know, Jerry Maguire came out and I was like, oh, I'm going to be a sports agent. Like I was like, that's what I'm, you know, I was definitely like molded from that. And seeing that and being like, I want to be an athlete. I want to be next to athletes. I want to work in sports. Like it totally shaped and molded my entire like worldview in life.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: I guess. So did you make decisions based on that movie, what you thought a sports agent did, how they operated?
00:10:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. I modeled all of my decisions based off of like, this is how I think you get to be a sports agent. And I didn't know, I don't know if I knew it at the time, but I think you should, I lived in obviously New Mexico. I think I should go to New York for college. I think that I should try to find any way that I can work at a sports agency. I did sports management. Like I was just like, how do I figure this out? Because my uncle was a professional athlete, but being an agent is like slightly different different like I just had no idea like how to get there but I was just like I'm gonna get there I'm gonna figure this out like I just know that if I take one step and then another step but it was all very much like no no no I want to play sports and I want to work in sports like that was like the two things on the bulletin board in my youth to high school and.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: So what were the steps that you took how did you figure out what the first step was and did you have any failed steps.
00:11:50
Speaker 2: It's kind of funny how it always like I hit the term manifesting a little bit because it's just like, oh, if I just think really hard, it's going to happen. But I do believe in like if you put something in your mind, then it will kind of randomly find its way to you. Like because I was thinking about sports day in and day out, it's like I saw this random job board posting on NYU's college job board for an internship at Excel Sports Management. And it was completely random. The set of circumstances for me to find that job posting, Excel at the time in 2004 was a three-person agency. Now they're a behemoth. They've done incredible stuff. They've grown. But at the time, they had five clients, a really great agent, but they weren't on the scene. They weren't CAA or these big agencies. And I was like, you know what? I'm just gut feeling. I'm going to intern for this company. And I didn't get paid because that was back in the age of where you could not pay people. for their work. I remember my first negotiation ever as like a semi-adult was like, you know what? Okay, you're not going to pay me, but you're going to pay for my monthly MetroCard because I got to come up here and that's what's going to happen. Me, poor college kid, can't afford the monthly MetroCard. And then once you're in, It just is like you make the connections and relationships. And I left and I went and I worked for Nike as an intern, like kind of like a perma intern again. And then I worked at Ogilvy in advertising and I just knew I wanted to be back in sports. Like I just I just knew and poor college kid right out of school living in New York, just running around. And it took me six months to get an interview. back at Excel. Like I had that like one contact and I would email him every two or three weeks be like, Hey, like, I don't know if you saw my email, but I would love to talk to whomever. And so after kind of getting exposed to the world, it just became I'm just going to keep knocking on doors until I get some foot in and then I'll figure it out.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: And did you stay at Ogilvy during that time or did you find another job?
00:13:54
Speaker 2: No, I was at Ogilvy that whole time. And I was just I was always finding my way back to sports like they were doing like one of the clients was doing a sports campaign. And I was like, oh, I'll do it. Like they were like, you know, sports, Michaela, like, you know, athletes. And I'm like, yes, please sign me up for literally anything connected with sports.
00:14:09
Speaker 1: I will do it. And your sister was also quite good at sports.
00:14:13
Speaker 2: Yes, she is. She's a pro athlete. I was like very like fit and fancy. Like I wanted to play every sport, do everything like I would play golf for a season. I'd be like, Oh, this is boring. Now I want to play tennis. So I'll play basketball. And then I finally settled on some sports I liked like she polar opposites started playing soccer when she was five and she hasn't stopped. She's a professional athlete. And she's always been just an incredibly like diligent and dedicated athlete. And I was always like, I want to play sports and have fun. But I also want to do this. And I also want to do that. But yeah, she's just an incredible player.
00:14:45
Speaker 1: Did seeing her dedicate herself to see what it took for her to go pro and to break in? Did that inform your perspective as you were coming up on the business side?
00:14:54
Speaker 2: I think that it revealed how hard you can work. Like, I always thought I was working hard when I was an athlete. Like, I wasn't mailing it in intentionally. But I realized that there's always sort of extra time you can put in. Being so about something that nothing really else takes over or takes precedent, I definitely carried that with me, especially my early tenure at Excel Sports. At the time when I came back to Excel Sports in 2012, it had grown from maybe a four or five person company to like a 17 person company. So it was still very small. And the wild, wild west, everyone was wearing a million hats, doing everything. I just threw myself completely into the job. Like that became my whole everything because it was the opportunity of a lifetime, in my opinion.
00:15:42
Speaker 1: And it was what I mean.
00:15:44
Speaker 2: from Jerry Maguire in the mid 90s to now like I did it like I made it through that whole thing. That's when I realized, oh, you have to have another gear. There's a lot of work. There's a lot of stuff you thought working from nine to eight was cool. We'll try 10, try 11pm, try getting midnight, try like a million days of travel. I think like what Madison always showed me, my sister is that extra gear exists. You just have to like make the conscious decision that you want to go there.
00:16:16
Speaker 1: Madison Hammond, by the way, was the first Native American player in NWSL history. She plays for the Utah Royals now, and she and Mikayla both have that same competitive tenacity that has allowed them to excel. Coming up, what sports agents actually do all day, how Mikayla talked a roomful of people into letting Blake Griffin run around fake naked on Broad City, a Twitter AMA with Derek Jeter, and what happens after you hit the goal on your bulletin board. Be right back. Please illuminate our audience and me, by the way. What is the difference between like an agent and a manager versus, you know, like why are all these firms here? What are they all doing?
00:17:11
Speaker 2: If you think about an athlete as a company, you would have a CEO of the company. You would have obviously all these different business roles that keep the company running and help it grow and help it achieve new revenue targets and all the things that we're so accustomed to in the business space. If you think about it and apply it in a way to an athlete as a business, there are similar roles, which is there are... People who are purely concerned with like, how do we make money? And that's, I would put like agents in that category of like, how are we going to make money? How are we going to position you to get a contract from a team to maintain your status within a professional league? We always think about leagues in terms of their stars, but there's a whole host of players who are fighting for roster spots, who are fighting for time and attention from coaches, from teams. And the agents play a critical role in advancing the sort of on-ball or on-court, on-field positioning of a player. That is their livelihood and that is the business's sort of like how it moves forward. My role was much more on what we'll call like plus roles. areas of an athlete, which is how do we get them more money from endorsements? How do we get them more money from business partnerships? What do they want to do? How do they want to become, you know, a humanitarian, a business person, become really well known in fashion? I think when I started in the business, athletes were very much not considered to be sort of cultural leaders. I think that was very much the shut up and dribble era. It was the athletes don't have anything of value to say beyond, you know, X's and O's. It's hard to like remember that now. And it's weird that we've seen such a shift in the past 15 years. But now it's like I was sort of in the middle of that evolution of no athletes do have more to say. And athletes can be extremely important to the cultural conversation that has nothing to do with their sport. And so that is what people in my role tend to do is think about how to expand what an athlete is and does beyond just like you dribble or play basketball.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: How did you nurture that? Can you give us some specific examples?
00:19:24
Speaker 2: So I worked with a number of NBA athletes and all athletes, they all have just incredible hopes and dreams and aspirations. I think they're extremely multidimensional and they have like deep, deep thoughts about fashion or art or entertainment. And I, you know, the whole like jock that doesn't really like have much going on. I quickly learned like after working with them, that there's a lot to do. And I think one example in specific is You know, I used to work with Blake Griffin and he was the funniest athlete I've ever worked with, like just naturally hilarious. And he wanted to do more in comedy and he had amazing connections in comedy. And I think what's really interesting is there's so many little barriers along the way that could potentially like break down a good idea. And so he really wanted to be in a show at the time called Broad City. I don't know if you remember Broad City. It was an amazing Comedy Central show. So hilarious. Alana Glazer was like my hero.
00:20:27
Speaker 1: We've had Alana on this show. Oh, amazing.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: Okay, great. So one of my claims to fame is she looked at me and she was like, you're so cool. And I was like, oh my God, that is the best thing anyone's ever said to me. But he wanted to be on Broad City. And the show was, you know, at the time, a little raunchy, a little bit like colored outside the lines. Definitely wasn't like the prim and proper show where, you know, it wasn't going to make a dick joke or, you know, talk about that. And so there was like real internal conversation had about whether Blake should do this show. you know, he had endorsement deals. Should he be doing sort of like these silly kind of like outside of the lines comedy things? And obviously you're not going to compromise sort of the creative of the show. And I personally sort of saw an incredible opportunity, like if because of the way that Broad City was received by the culture, by the by the way that it was received by comedians, by the sort of entertainment, like if he's on that show, like that's not like, oh, I did a guest appearance on like some late night skit. Like that's like a legit comedy show. Yeah, I think that some of the powers that be are always, you know, they're always coming from a much more conservative position of like, you needed someone on the team who understood that him doing this show, no one's going to take it literally. Like people understand that it's comedy. And so I was able to massage the conversations to be like, he should do this and it's okay. And there's not going to be this crazy downside. And so we did the show and the entire skit was him and Alana being naked together and doing like non-sexual sex activities. And I was like, oh God, I really hope I'm not going to regret this decision.
00:22:03
Speaker 1: You're like, this is definitely going to go in one of two directions.
00:22:07
Speaker 2: And, you know, it was incredible. And literally the response at the time was like, oh, Blake was on Broad City. Like he's a legit comedian guy. He's legit. He's not like floating in. And it was a great response. And nobody cared that he was like, you know, running around like fake naked with Alana Glazer. It was just all, it just all built his credibility in that space. And it's just an example of like those, itty bitty like decisions and things that can happen on the course of killing a good idea or like sanding it down to a level where it's just not going to carry the same meaning. And I think that I was really fortunate to be in the seat when like a number of those decisions had to be made because I was younger, had a different background and could see the board a little bit differently. I was able to like advance conversations around things that I think most people would have either just like walked away from because they just didn't understand it or would have, like I said, taken it down so far to like the component parts that it's like it's no longer meaningful.
00:23:17
Speaker 1: You've now become Jerry Maguire. You did it. You accomplished your goal. Did you have that moment of realization or you were just so caught up in the excitement of all of it that you didn't really pause to give yourself that moment of recognition?
00:23:30
Speaker 2: No pause. I think it was like, oh, I did it. I took a pay cut. I was so broke. I was working seven days a week. I worked retail on the weekends because like, I mean, at the time it was like a $ 5, 000 pay cut, but to a 23, 24 year old, that's a significant amount of money. And my mom was like, I don't think you should do that. And I'm like, I just have to do it. I have to see what this is like, what this world is like. It's been on the bulletin board, you know, for forever. So then once I got there, it was almost, it was less like I did it and a little bit more of like, oh shit, what now? Yeah, like a little bit more of like, oh, now I have to prove that I'm worthy of this space. Now I have to prove that I belong here and that I am going to add value and figure this all out. And so that was like the speed at which I operated for a good number of years, which was just like take no prisoners must prove that I'm worth being here a little bit of imposter syndrome of just like, Am I supposed to be here? Like, am I supposed to be in the seat making these decisions and negotiating this and doing that and being there? But then I was like, oh, yeah, no, I'm pretty good at this.
00:24:39
Speaker 1: Did you have like a moment that it clicked or just after all you looked around, you're like, I know more than these people like I'm supposed to be here.
00:24:45
Speaker 2: I don't think it was a specific moment, but it was just earned time. And I think that that's like, you're like, oh, there's this crisis happening. Like, I'm not going to spiral. I'm okay. Like, we've done this before. So-and-so's calling because they're upset about this. Like, it's okay. Like, it would just be, I remember this woman that I used to work with joined and it was like her first month and she was a veteran and executive. And then I was sitting at my desk and I was just like, so stressed out right now. And she looked at me and she was just like, couldn't tell like it literally was like nothing, nothing was going on. And I was like, I was like, Oh, yeah, no, lots happening. I just think like, kind of going back to the way I was since a kid, like I've just always been able to take things on the chin and remain really even keeled. But yeah, there was no specific moment that I was like, Oh, yeah, I got this shit. It was just more so it became easier. Like the things just became easier.
00:25:36
Speaker 1: Do you remember ever getting a call where like, oh, like it's this person calling me. I cannot believe this person is calling me right now.
00:25:43
Speaker 2: I mean, I did a lot of work with Derek Jeter during the latter half of his career when he was about to retire. He was definitely an athlete where I was just like, holy shit. Like I'm working with Derek Jeter right now. And we launched the Players Tribune in 2014, the day after he retired. And one of the first things we did, which was sort of like our idea was this was again, different era was like, let's do a Twitter AMA. Like nobody knows anything about Derek. Let's do a Twitter AMA so that we can just have fun with fans and people. They can learn more about him. And so there's this great picture of me and him and the one other guy that was doing it with us. And it's just us. And like, I look back on that. I'm like, that was that was like a very amazing thing to be a part of. Yeah.
00:26:29
Speaker 1: And what was the Players Tribune?
00:26:30
Speaker 2: But Players Tribune was a media company started by Derek Jeter and a fellow co-founder, Jamie Messler, in 2014 that was athlete first person editorial. So it was athletes with a ghostwriter writing about everything from Blake Griffin wrote about Donald Sterling's white party. Danica Patrick wrote about dating a fellow driver. It was really athletes talking about whatever it is they wanted to talk.
00:26:56
Speaker 1: About.
00:26:57
Speaker 2: And it was an incredible platform. And I remember like people saying athletes are never going to do this. They're never going to lean in and do this. I mean, it became the platform where Kobe announced his retirement, where Kevin Durant announced he was going to the Golden State Warriors. Kevin Love wrote about mental health and suffering from panic attacks for the first time. Like it became a really important place for athletes to talk about things that were important to them. It was very illuminating to see how media companies go from a one line in a deck. That's just an idea going from that to a full fledged brand that meant so much to so many athletes and the broader sport community.
00:27:36
Speaker 1: Do you think that informed or planted a seed for you around storytelling and sport?
00:27:41
Speaker 2: For sure. I think I always had this thought about athletes being able to own more of the cultural conversation. And then this just was like the true like, oh, like, this was true. Like people really care when athletes if you do it in the right way. And if what they say is authentic and meaningful to them. that people will respond and people will see things in a new light. I think what it taught me is like, one, you can sniff out when people are speaking as if they're on like a press tour versus when it's something that is like deeply important to them. You can tell and feel and see the difference. You can tell and feel like, oh, this is going to work. This matters versus like, I don't know if anyone's going to care about this. I think that discernment that I learned just through like watching the response and seeing how people talked about it definitely informed how I see media now and how I see sort of that same barometer we have. Like we are such a highly educated media consumers. Like we can spot bullshit from a mile away. Like I... think that that all came from like this era of obviously social media and people communicating aspects of themselves more broadly. And now we've just come through the other side where it's like, I can tell when you're going through the motions, I can tell when something's really important to you. And I can tell when you're feeding me bullshit. That nuance and understanding is definitely like what informs like how I think about content and storytelling and media today. And it's like, it's so hard to get people to just be honest. And it's like, it's also because we take things too seriously too. It's like if somebody says something and it's not exactly the way that we want to hear it at the time, that's like the way that everyone's talking about something. There was a lot of times when people would get severe backlash and then they never want to talk again because they're like, this is not worth it.
00:29:31
Speaker 1: A lot of that, for sure.
00:29:33
Speaker 2: There has to be a true clarity around what is the benefit to me for doing this. if people in general, like, celebrity or not, don't have like really firm confidence and like I see the clear benefit here, then it's like, yeah, why would you do it?
00:29:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, why would you expose yourself and risk saying not everything exactly 100% right? No, totally. The Players' Tribune taught Michaela something she still uses every day. People can tell when an athlete is reading talking points and when they actually mean it. Genuine storytelling is everything. After the break, Michaela will tell us about a pivotal cry at her desk, a move to L.A. where good ideas kept going nowhere, and the soccer term that turned into a company. We'll get there right after the break. Okay, so how did we build to what has now become Offball?
00:30:38
Speaker 2: You know, I was excited to chat with you in this sort of like pivot mindset because it was probably one of the more consequential decisions in my life that I don't think I realized at the time, but I do now for sure to leave Excel. I mean, you heard it was the bulletin board. It was I all I wanted to do was be at an agency and be an agent. I'd been there for seven or eight years. And then I just, you know, they had that moment where I finally had like reached the end of my road. Like, I remember I was in the car driving back in college. crazy traffic from the Hamptons with an athlete who was doing an appearance. And then on the way, I got a text that one of the other clients I worked with was being traded and a complete surprise, like blindsided everybody. Then I got back to my desk and I couldn't reveal anything couldn't share anything obviously it was with a different client like you know you just kind of kept it whatever and then i got back to my desk and i just remember like sobbing and just being like oh my god i had to just do all this and now i'm going to have to think about what comes next for this client who's going to be like you're the support system a lot of times for families and so having to like gear up to do that i i was like oh man i don't know how i'm gonna do this and that was sort of the first kernel of like maybe i shouldn't do this and I miss working with athletes directly still, but it was just a like, you know, I have a lot of ideas and I have a lot of things that I want to do. Maybe it's time to just spread my wings and explore. I can always come back. Like, that's always kind of like my thing. I can always come back. And I got a job in LA and it was one of those things where it's like, I need you out here in like six weeks. And I was like, you know what?
00:32:19
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:32:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wanted to get out of New York. I'd been there for almost 13 years. And I was like, if I don't leave New York, I'm going to be here forever. And like, I moved a lot when I was a kid. So the idea of like being in New York for 15, 20 years, I was like, no way. I was like, I gotta like go explore a different city. I gotta do something different. Just new job. I was just like, you know what? I think it's time. Maybe it was premature. Maybe I should still be at Excel. I don't know. But it was like such a consequential decision. So that was my big pivot moment of just like leaving the lifetime aspiration behind to pursue other passion areas, which was content, storytelling and athletes. That's what my tenure at Excel taught me. It was like, I really care and I'm passionate about how people convey their stories.
00:33:07
Speaker 1: I find that sometimes people are leaving something when they pivot and sometimes they're going towards something. It's like there's something they want to do. It sounds like yours was sort of a mixture of both. Like you were trying to leave behind the lifestyle that you had with the job and you were going towards like you already had an idea in mind of something that you wanted to do. How quickly did it come together for you?
00:33:30
Speaker 2: It took many years. I had a couple of false starts around businesses and ideas to try to get off the ground. What really changed is I met a co-founder of Offball and he and I started building and working together on a different company entirely. But through that work was where Offball was born, was just our collaboration and conversations and nuanced understanding of media and athlete and content and culture. It was really like born out of a like, man, there's so much good content and storytelling. And the culture of sport is like really becoming more and more and more important, but it's becoming harder and harder to find. So that was the real kind of like light bulb moment. But it was this I'm a big collaborator. Like I believe in brainstorms and talking to people and talking things through and interrogating things. And like, even if it's just interrogating things to interrogate them, because it helps me wrap my head around it. Straw man arguments that like make no sense. I was like, Makayla, why are we talking about this? And I'm like, because like, maybe there's something there. And it was through all of those conversations that we just had a sort of aha moment of like, you can create a media company that is based around sports culture, which is a passion. The audience is accelerating and exponentially growing, even though it's already as dominant as it is as a cultural force that brands and celebrity and talent like they want to be engaged in, but that the consumer experience is just really warmth in. People are sick of negativity. People are sick of being force-fed content that they didn't necessarily sign up for or that the algorithm has just determined today is like, everyone's going to see this particular story. We wanted to create something that had a level of taste and a level of cultural authority to say like, this is interesting. You should be paying attention to this. But also that was positive. I think we're all so tired of like, the pile on. You know, we joke internally at Offball that we are like the kind of like the internet's like hype machine in sport. We're just like, you're really cool. What you do is awesome. And it comes from a place of like, we genuinely think that I think we just wanted to make space for that.
00:35:44
Speaker 1: What was the company that you were trying to work on with your co founder that became Offball? What were some of the other fits and starts you had?
00:35:51
Speaker 2: Well, before I started working with co-founder Offball, I was working on a company called Co-Laboratory, which was a athlete studio model. At the time, this was 2017, 2018. When all these athletes, they wanted production companies. They wanted to tell their own stories. It was the height of all of these streamers coming online and going on a buying spree and buying all of these sports documentaries and sports stories before new media took hold. And we wanted to create a company that basically allowed them to get from A to Z much faster, allowed them to get the resources and connections to get their ideas and their production companies off the ground. I think it was a great idea. Like I think there are companies doing that now that are helping athletes or helping independent people get their production companies or entertainment companies like off of the ground. One thing I learned that I did not like about Hollywood when I moved to LA was that great ideas just don't happen. Like I was so confused. I was like, wait, we're going to sit in a room and you like it. You like it. It's amazing. Buyers love it. And then it just doesn't go anywhere. And I was like, I don't understand this. I was like, wait, I don't get it. I was like, now usually it's like, okay, when are we launching? Roll it out. Boom, done. And it just didn't happen. And so I was like, I got to get out of here. I was like, this is not built for the way that I operate and think about things. But that was a little bit of like why it was fits and starts with the company. It's like, you'd have a great idea. You'd have the right people attached. You'd have the right producer and all the things you need. And then it would just not happen. And then COVID hit. And that I think was just a reorientation for everybody. And that's when I met the co-founder of Offball. And he and I were working on building an advisory business that does comms and brand strategy and sports and tech and business. And it was through our collaboration that we came up.
00:37:40
Speaker 1: What was it when you had the aha moment? You're like, OK, now we've hit it. Now we know what the company is going to be.
00:37:45
Speaker 2: I think the aha moment was we had the idea and I find this always happens. Like you have the idea and then you start executing the idea and then the idea changes because you realize when you're executing it, like, oh, that doesn't work. Oh, that doesn't work. Oh, maybe we should tweak it this way. Maybe we should tweak it that way. That's my favorite thing to do is to pressure test and go through like what you think is a good idea and then put it into reality and be like, I don't like this or I do love this or whatever. That's it. And I think that with off ball, I mean, one, when we came up with the name, that's always a great moment because you're like, oh, we have this thing. It's so great. And but then off ball, like actually came from like my many, many hours of watching my sister play soccer because off ball is a term in soccer for the action that's happening outside of the point of where the ball is. It's also a term in basketball, obviously, but it's like all the things happening around the direct point of play. And I was like, that's it. That's what this is like. And it just clicked. And then we had a great branding agency. All right, I will show that shop now. They're Brooklyn. They're amazing. They were able to take that thought and put it into a brand and an idea. And they came up with this great mascot that we call Bali, who is just like that fun, playful mascot. person running around in sports. And that's when it was like, okay, we have a thing. This feels different. It looks different. It doesn't look like anything else that's currently operating in sort of like that convergence of sports and culture. And that's when I felt like, okay, we have a thing.
00:39:22
Speaker 1: Offball launched in September, 2024, a website, newsletters, and social feeds about the culture of sports curated by academic humans, no clickbait, and no unnecessary negativity. Mikayla built Off-Ball for mainstream casual sports fans who want to get excited and be involved in fandom, the ones who came for a tunnel fit or a comeback story and stayed for the game, the ones who are invested in the culture. So I asked Mikayla how she defines that intersection of sports and culture. When you say the convergence of sport and culture, what does that mean to you? I think everybody, you know, you hear everyone talking about, oh, women's sports is having a moment, sports is having a moment. And I think people struggle to define it. How do you define it?
00:40:07
Speaker 2: I define it as almost like the pop culture conversation around sports. If you were, you're not a sports fan, let's pretend like you're not a sports fan.
00:40:16
Speaker 1: I was like, me? No, I'm in, I'm all in.
00:40:20
Speaker 2: You and i are sitting down and we're watching a game and you're like what is this game like who cares about this game and i tell you two or three things to get you super engaged in the game this guy is coming back from an injury and he's beloved by everybody and he's everyone's favorite player etc or he's dating taylor swift and like it's the most incredible thing ever like i'm Those things to me are the culture of sports, the things that bring us into the game that have nothing to do with how a player performed or how a team is performed or like the on-field narrative. It's not just fashion and sports. You know, it's the things that I think collectively help us understand like why we're passionate about the game. Like we're passionate about it because Rory McIlroy has never won a Masters before. And then he won the Masters. And that is an incredible moment that like I as a non diehard golf fan can like get behind the Knicks winning the championship. Like that is obviously derived from what's happening on the field. But it's just that collective, exciting feeling that brings everyone together around the game. So we spend a lot of time at Offball talking about fandom, talking about the interesting ways people are talking about sports. Obviously, I think a big part of it is diving into the personalities of the athletes and their interests, whether it's fashion or entertainment, music, and why somebody who might not be a superstar is a really compelling person that you should be paying attention to. I hope that's a more interesting version of this convergence of sports and culture than you've heard before.
00:41:52
Speaker 1: For sure. What are your conclusions about fandom or the thoughts that you're having?
00:41:59
Speaker 2: I think fandom is such a fun and uniting thing, especially in our current culture. Like you and I can sit down and I can say like, who are your teams? And you can be like Gotham and the Liberty and I can be like the Aces and the Utah Royals because that's where my sister plays. And we can just chit chat about our favorite teams for forever. It's just a positive feeling. It brings excitement to people. And I think it's like a genuine fun thing. Like I, I'm a big soccer fan. So my, my thing is like, I start talking to people and they mentioned that they casually watch soccer. I'm like, who's your team? Yeah.
00:42:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker 2: And, and. And everyone's like, oh, I'm an Arsenal fan. And then I have to reveal that I like Man City. And I think fandom in all its shapes and forms is just a really fun and exciting thing to bring people together. And I know that sounds like really cheesy in today's day and age, but... It's just a fun feeling. And it's like, hopefully off ball is a place where you can tap into that feeling of like being a true fan because being a true fan isn't negative and it isn't takedown. It's honest. It's like, oh, that team didn't play well or like he's been sucking right now. We're fans because it makes us excited and it makes us feel good and we get passionate about it. And I think that those are the feelings from a very esoteric perspective that we hope to continue to like tap into.
00:43:15
Speaker 1: Well, I put a lot of thought into why does someone wear team merchandise? Like, why does someone purchase it and why do they wear it? Ultimately, people wear it because they want to convey something about themselves. They want the people around them to know that they are part of this fandom. And why? Like, if we really kind of think about that, why does that matter? You're conveying that you are part of something. You are part of this fan base and it says something about yourself. And that's like an interesting part of fandom as well. It's like, why do we care that other people know what we just do? Why be a.
00:43:44
Speaker 2: Fan if you're not going to let people know about it? People who are interested, even interested in sports. It's like, you know, we have this series at Offball called Origin Stories because I think people come to fandom in very interesting ways. Like, how did, like, why are you such a fan of the Knicks? And it's always touched to something personal that happens in their lives that is relevant and exciting to them. Even if it's like, oh, my girlfriend or my spouse or my partner is a huge fan of this team and they watch it all the time. So now I'm a fan. Like it's always these like really interesting, like my dad took me to a game once and now I'm a huge, it's just like a inside out core memory moment where it's like, oh, this is my team. And yeah, it's just like fun to root for things. It's just fun. Even if you don't even care, like you're like, oh, the WNBA finals are on, even though both my teams are in it, I'm rooting for this player or I'm rooting for this team. Cause it's just you having a rooting interest is inherently a good time.
00:44:38
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. It makes it way better. What is something that at some point you saw as a low point and now you see it as having really launched you to the success you are today?
00:44:46
Speaker 2: Wow. What a question. I mean, I think it is a little bit of that like crying at the desk. You know, I think it's what the crying at the desk moment and sort of that whole summer. What it pushed me to was recognizing that I do have limits and I'm not superwoman and I can't just keep on keeping on. And that you don't have to keep doing the things you don't want to do just because you're doing them. Like, I think sometimes you get caught into this, like, well, this is who I am. And this is what I do. And this is what I worked for. And I think that it takes a little bit of I don't even know, just like random courage to be like, maybe I don't. And then how do I get that same sort of like fulfillment? from something else, even though like I'm a career-oriented person. I love building. I love working really hard. But I think that moment taught me like I have my limits, but then also taught me like I can do more. I can do more things. I have more ideas. And it pushed me out the door to pursue them. But I also like loved working with athletes. It was an amazing time in my life. And like I said, I'm like, oh, I'll come back. But in the interim, off-ball, the response that people have to the company and the way that we're approaching the sports conversation is just really exciting. We're humbled every time that someone's like, I love your stuff. I love your newsletter. I follow you. I'm such a big fan. And we take that really seriously in terms of like, we are trying to create something that is uniquely different in this in a very crowded space. While we aren't always 100% unique and different, like we try to be, And I think that like all of like the learned experience of the fits and starts, the random ideas you have that work, the pressure testing, all the things you learn in your career is like definitely helping me like push off all forward and push it to different spaces.
00:46:39
Speaker 1: Do you think you'll pivot again?
00:46:41
Speaker 2: Fascinating. I'm always open to a pivot. I don't know. I'm such a like here and now live in the present, take it one step at a time person. ask me in five years and be like, did you pivot? I, but yeah, I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure another pivot is coming for me.
00:47:01
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, Michaela. It's been great to have you on.
00:47:04
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:47:04
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
00:47:05
Speaker 2: This was great. It was so fun.
00:47:09
Speaker 1: You don't have to keep doing the things you don't want to do just because you're doing them. Michaela worked toward the things she had pinned on her bulletin board from the time she was a kid and she got there. Then she She let herself take it down. She's still in sports, but now she's standing somewhere she never planned to stand because it didn't exist yet. It goes back to the feast day she told us about at the top of the episode. The celebration doesn't come for free. You do the work, you keep the door open, and you approach obstacles with community and authenticity. Michaela's story is a reminder that if something on your own bulletin board doesn't fit anymore... you're allowed to take it down or at least move it over a little to make room for new dreams to take shape. You can find Offball at offball.news. Happy Indigenous Peoples Day and I'll see you next Wednesday. Thanks for listening to She Pivots. If you like this episode, follow the show so you never miss a pivot story and share it with one woman in your life who might need to hear it. To learn more about our guests and join our community, follow us on Instagram at shepivotsthepodcast. are subscribed to our sub stack for exclusive content and behind the scenes conversations. You can also find us at shepivotspod.com. This episode was produced and edited by Paige Davis-Janot with sound editing and mixing by Nina Pollack, logistics and planning by Emma Stopik and Kendall Krupkin, research by Christine Dickinson. She Pivots is proud to be a part of the iHeart Podcast Network. I endorse She Pivots.
