Episode 226 Snippets: Chris Wescott of the New Jersey Devils

On episode 226 of the Digital and Social Media
Sports Podcast, Neil chatted with Chris Wescott,
Senior Manager of Content Strategy for the New
Jersey Devils.
What follows is a collection of snippets from the
podcast. To hear the full interview and more, check
out the podcast on all podcast platforms and at
www.dsmsports.net.
@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 226: Chris Wescott

Chris’s career path
“I started [wanting] to be a doctor, so I started in
pre-med [in college] and I got that 8:00 AM
advanced biology for majors class, and let's just say
that's not for me. So I was walking down the halls of
my university and I saw that there was a job opening
for sports reporter for the school newspaper and I'm
like ‘Hey.’ I love sports, I've always thought I would
get into sports someday and do something [so] let's
give it a try.’

“From there it was crazy, it was zero to 60 like that. It was
doing the sports writing, and then all of a sudden I'm
promoted to sports editor and now I have a team of sports
reporters underneath me and I’m doing the layouts of the
sports section. Then from there I'm taking broadcast classes
centered around sports media. Then I'm getting asked, like,
‘Hey you've got a pretty good voice, would you like to do the
radio station?’ So then I started doing that and podcasting,
and then all of a sudden it's, like, ‘Do you wanna start doing
play-by-play?’ So I started doing play-by-play and then it all
kind of evolved into ‘Do you wanna be on camera?’ And then
becoming the sports director for our school news station.

“It just kept moving and I just kept trying new things and
new mediums and kind of doing it all together. Then I got
lucky enough where I'm getting towards the end of my
college career and the Oklahoma City Barons hockey team
moved into Oklahoma City. And literally the first day they
announced [the team] on their website — which we still had
the ‘under construction’ on it — and I will never forget there
was just a general email and I just sent them a general email
and said, ‘Look, I'm in communications and content [and] I
would love to come work with you guys as an intern.’ A few
days later I heard back from their PR Director, Josh Evans
[and he] gave me my start in sports as an intern in the
communications department.

“From there, [I] got exposure to all things communications, social
media, writing, editing for the website, some on-camera stuff,
filled in on color commentary for our radio from time to time.
They were the [AHL] affiliate with the Edmonton Oilers, so the
Oilers crew would come down and shoot some prospect coverage
every once in a while in Oklahoma City, so I became really good
friends with their digital content team and, you know, right place
right time — they ended up having an opening for a writer and
content specialist and they called me. I like to say I got the call up
to the NHL. They offered me a job and I jumped at the chance.
My girlfriend at the time, now my wife, we moved up to Alberta.
It was a big change. I worked there for about five seasons, evolved
into their head writer, head of editorial.

“Then from there I decided, you know what? I wanna run my own content
team, I wanna run my own content strategy. So I had an opportunity to
move to Chicago and work for the Blackawks for a year as their Manager
of Content, I wanted to kind of spread my wings and kind of separate
myself from the Oilers. And the funny thing is — again, right place right
time — my boss from the Oilers got a job with the [New Jersey Devils]
and, you know, I'd only been with Chicago for a year. It was a very, very
difficult decision to leave because I loved it so much and I had a lot of
freedom with the website and we were doing great things and that team
over there in Chicago was very talented. But for me it was like, I had an
opportunity to work for a boss who I really care about as a person who
helped me along the way and to start a content team from scratch because
[the Devils] didn't have a content team at the time; they had one camera
person reporting outside of content. There was no department. So [Evans]
was gonna build that department from scratch, and that's what we've done
since 2019.

“I was his first hire and we've really reshaped and
reimagined what content is for the New Jersey
Devils, and that's been a lot of fun…What I do is
the social media departments report into me, but
really my primary job is to look at our numbers,
look at our strategy, find efficiencies, get our
department resources to do the job better, report
how our performance metrics are doing to the
executive teams and really help shape the
innovation of our digital content.

On coming up with an interest in sports broadcasting and going the team
route
“I think it came from me wanting to be different. I was fully expecting for
me to take one of those weekend sports anchor jobs. In fact, I had a job
offer in San Angelo, Texas, and I believe — I don't wanna misquote it —
but I think it was like an $18,000 a year job plus overtime. It was one of
those first market, work really hard and try and get out of that market
within a year or two kind of a job. I had that offer and I was just like,
well, this is what all my peers are doing, this is what everyone in
broadcasting is kind of doing. This could be a stepping stone for me.
[But] I just didn't want that. I was like, look, I've done more than just
anchoring and shooting and editing and [the] weekend sports anchor job
[is] not gonna give me the kind of flexibility and versatility of my job that
I really want.

“So I started really asking myself, what do you wanna do with your
life? And I still didn't know at the time, but I enjoyed working for the
Barons so much that I wanted to make that a full-time gig and I was
willing to do really anything to get that. So I started off like a lot of
people in sports — they couldn't pay me full-time in the minors just
to jump right in and do communications, so I had to sell season
tickets. And that's how I started. So I would sell season tickets during
the week and then on the weekends for the big games, I would be
doing communications stuff. Then it started kind of evolving to
where my nights were communication stuff and then it started to
evolve [to] only selling tickets like three, four days a week and the
other time you're doing this. And then eventually it was like, you're
too important on the communications and content side, we need you
to focus fully on here, come report into marketing and do that.

“I knew that I had an option to go the traditional route. [But] for me, I just wanted to
do something different. And I think back on that decision and I realized that I couldn't
have planned that any better because it allowed me to diversify my skillset even more
than I already had. I learned everything. I mean, I was editing TV commercial spots at
two or three in the morning and sending them to our local affiliates.
I'll never forget…I was editing [and] we had a mistake. YUm, not, you know, I didn't
misspell anything or anything in the TV spot, but we were changing a promotion on a
night and it was going out to our affiliate that next morning; it was gonna start running
at 6:00 AM. So I had to drive from home to the office, open it up myself, go in and work
at three in the morning on this TV spot to get it out to our affiliates in time for the 6:00
AM broadcast. So I'm doing it, I'm rendering [the project] and then my computer's like
crashing and of course I'm freaking out. And the owner of the team walks in at 3:00 AM
because he had been out with his wife — they went to a gala and then he had to run in
and get something from his desk because [I think] they were going somewhere for the
weekend and he needed his laptop or something. So he comes in really late and he's
like, ‘I thought someone broke in like, what are you doing here?’

“I hadn't really talked to him that much. He's the owner of the team and I
was an entry-level person. And I was like, ‘Well, we had to get our TV
spots to KFOR in time and I was the only one that could edit them, so I
came in and did it.’ And he was like, ‘what's your favorite beer?’ And I was
like, I don't know…whatever [beer] it was. And he's like, okay. So then the
next day I come into work in the morning, I got it all done, come back in at
9:00 AM or whatever it was, and there's a case of beer sitting on my desk
with a note from the owner. He would take me aside later on and he
became kind of a mentor to me, Bob Funk Jr. He came up to me and he
was like ‘You need to tell people what you're doing a little bit more often
because nobody in this department, nobody in this company would've
known that you were here at 3:00 AM if I hadn't walked in
randomly.’...That always kind of stuck with me. That was a moment when
I realized that it was frustrating to be there doing that, but I still kind of
loved it. So I realized that content for a team was something I wanted to
keep doing…”

On making his career in sports in hockey
“I think it all started for me when one day one of my
professors was like, ‘Hey, the club hockey team needs a
play-by-play broadcaster and you've done football,
you've done basketball, you've done baseball — would
you wanna try hockey?’ I actually am from Rochester,
New York originally, so I was a big Amerks fan growing
up, big Sabres fan growing up. It wasn't my favorite
sport — I'll always be a football fan first — but for me it
was like, okay, I know this sport, sure, I'll go give it a try.

“And the first broadcast was a disaster; I was using football
terminology. It was so fast and it's club hockey, but it was so fast
compared to a football game, a D2 football game. And I'm sitting
there and I couldn't get the names…I was mispronouncing
things…They asked me if I wanted to come back and part of me
was like, no. And then I was like, you know what? I wanna come
back, but I'm gonna do it right this time. So I came back two
hours earlier [than normal]...came in, went and visited with the
visiting team, got their pronunciations from their head coach,
asked him a few questions about who to look out for, stuff like
that, took all my notes, took some pointers from one of the
hockey players on the team that I work for of what I should be
saying in certain instances, when I should pause, that kind of
thing.

“I went up and did the next broadcast and it was so much better
and I just loved it so much. I was like, I'm gonna do this. So I did
it for several years and I think that rekindled my love for hockey a
little bit because it’s just so fast and so fun. And the Barons
opportunity happened so organically after that. So I think I kind
of just fell into hockey full time, but that was probably the
earliest. I figured that I wanted to be in hockey. The organic
transition to the Blackhawks and now the Devils has just been -
those are my contacts. Those are the people I know, those are the
people that know me, those are the people who know my work. So
it's been easy to stay in hockey. And I haven't really branched out
that much — not to say I won't in the future, but as it stands
today, the [opportunity] has been in hockey for me and that's the
way it's continued.”

On what the team communications staff was expected to deliver
content-wise and how that evolved
“I think when I first started, it was like Twitter had just launched,
Instagram was just launching. I remember it being like a lot of
experimentation and a lot of AP style, a lot of press release style,
very [dry] tone. And I think it evolved over time while I was there
where we started telling different feature stories and we started
doing more live streaming and we started doing more character and
personality-driven content. I think over time, it kind of just
completely evolved to now we're reaching people in different
mediums with immediacy. We have to be cognizant that all of the
media is trying to be first, but we need to be accurate and we not
only need to be accurate, we need to have layered content plans.

“So it's not just a press release. It's a press release
and a one-on-one, or a press release [and] one-on-
one [and] a mini documentary, a press release and
a raw interview lined up or whatever it may be. And
I think that's kind of how it evolved. Before it was
just straight-line, get the news out and whatever,
and here's some ticket messaging — and now it's
evolved to feed the content beast. It really did
evolve over the first three, four years that I was
with Edmonton to where it is today, which is a
constant flow of content and information.”

On communicating with team operations and PR around
news and transactions
“I think it's all dependent on the club that you work for. I
mean, there are some [teams] that are very lock and key, very
prestigious and very ‘we don't do anything to harm the brand
and the shield, and this is who we are and our players are on
lockdown., they are one hundred percent focused on winning
hockey games or football games’ or whatever it may be. And
then you're gonna have some teams that are like, look, ‘we
gotta punch above our weight class a bit. We've gotta be a
little bit different. We gotta be innovative. We gotta push the
envelope.’

“And I think it's all about you need to have a vision and a
north star for your brand, specifically, and then you kind of
build your content plan around that, and you kind of build
your marketing around that, and you kind of build your voice
around that. And I think that it's just different for every club
and there are different levels of buy-in. You know…you're
gonna work for some organizations where you put something
out there and you're really proud of it, and you're going to
get a message from PR or you're gonna get a message from
somebody that's like, ‘Hey, that's not in line with what we're
trying to do.’ You're going to have moments where they're
pushing the envelope and they're challenging you to be a
little bit more innovative and do stuff differently.

“It's all dependent on where you're working, what
the structure is and what the north star is. And
even if your organization has a north star and a
brand voice or a brand identity, because some
organizations don't — and then it's on you as a
digital media professional to really try and find
out what that is and work with the right people to
make sure that you've created something that now
is kind of a handbook for how you approach digital
content and social media and all that.

“So I really do think it's, it's different across the board. You know,
I've worked with PR departments in my career that are very lock
and key, very ‘we don't do that’, very straightlaced; and I've worked
with PR departments that are, like ‘what, what do you got next for
me?’ Like ‘what's next?’And telling us things before they happen
and really kind of getting into it or texting you late at night ‘Hey, I
love that post’ or ‘Hey, I love that story’.
“So I think it's just different and there is no blueprint for every
single organization, because it starts at the top with the executive
teams and how willing they are to have talented individuals weigh
in on certain decisions; or if they've already made a brand
document and a north star that you're gonna follow when you get
there. So I think it's just completely different depending on clubs.”

On creating the north star for the brand and the personality and how that
may adjust with new players, coaches, GMs
“I think it depends on who's spearheading it with the club, right? Like, if
it's the ownership [that] has a certain north star or they've challenged
their CEO to set the tone, it's gonna be a little bit different, and that tone
is probably going to survive past GMs or hockey ops, or whoever may be
coming in and wanting to change things a little bit…Yeah, there's gonna
be turnover and stuff, but the challenges for the creative types and the
people that have come up with the north star, the people that abide by it
to find ways to convince people that this is the right path. And honestly,
if you have a good north star and it's working, then turnover shouldn't
matter because that's the brand identity, right? So that's what the shield
represents. That's the tone, that's the voice. It survives past different
regimes changes and stuff like that.

“The whole point of having a brand identity and voice is so
that you can survive turnover at the creative level too.
Because let's say I have a very talented social media person
and they go get another job and they become Director of
Social Media somewhere. Congratulations to you…The social
media presence shouldn't change. Because it's not Joe, it's
not his voice. It’s the Devils, it's the Oilers, it's the Stars. It's
not [the person’s] voice. You know, they may leave their
fingerprints on it in terms of creativity and ideas and
innovation, but the brand voice, the brand identity, the north
star, the content that you're producing should be able to
survive through regime changes and staffing changes and
turnover.

“That's just something that I hold true and I think
that's very important because, if not, you notice
[that] the social changes from year to year and a lot
of that's because, these companies, they maybe hire
someone fresh out of college to run social media
because they haven't evolved with the times, right?
To know that you have to invest in those types of
positions. So that's where you're going to get a little
helterskelter in terms of brand voice and then
you're gonna see things that don't necessarily make
sense coming from that team.”

How brand voice and personality and content strategy may
adjust with the team performance and potentially changing
roster
“Yeah, I think there's always internal dialogue and
cooperation with multiple departments across the board and
how you're messaging certain things. I think that your
content plan, the core of it kind of stays the same. There are
certain things that you're very repetitive with, there are
certain areas of your content plan that have a little bit more
flexibility to be tailored to certain types of storylines and
what things you wanna push the brakes on and what things
you wanna push forward with.

“That being said, you try and have your core and you try
and work that core. You try and make your plan and
work the plan, and then the flexibility comes in where,
you know, if something really good happens, you are
mobile enough and talented enough in your content
team to jump on that and amplify that as a bigger
moment. You can weather the peaks and valleys of
engagement because you have a baseline of traffic that
you've built up through good team coverage or good
personality content or a great social voice, whatever it
may be. So you're able to kind of weather those valleys
when the team's not performing very well.

“I mean, we've been very proud on the Devils side [that], over the last
three years, we've evolved from 12th in aggregate public engagement
rate to 11th last year and then seventh this last season. So we've gone
up despite the team having flat performance. And I think a big
reason for that, on top of a brand voice that our fans really enjoy and
engage with, is that we've been steady with our content plan. We
always provide hockey coverage, every single practice, every single
pregame, every single postgame, you could find every single
interview that you could possibly want. We're constantly telling
feature stories, [too]. So fans, they know we are going to promote the
positive stories heavier than we do the negative stories, but we do
provide a base of down-the-middle coverage as the core of our
content plan. And when you add that to fun social media content and
brand voice, you have the recipe for a team that can weather flat
performance on the ice.”

About balancing objective coverage of the team while not
saying anything too negative
“I think that the first thing you need to do is be honest and
understand that fans are smart. They know when you're trying
to cover up bad performances or when you're trying the
illusion of look over here while you're pulling a card over here.
And I think that for content teams that lean into hockey
editorial or team coverage you have to provide a baseline of
neutrality, objectivity, as you said, where we run every single
interview raw from start to finish. There's nothing hidden;
those fans can get all the quotes that they want, media can get
all the quotes from them. And that's a big base of our coverage.

“From there, our game previews and recaps are
straight line down the middle. There's not really
anything that's over the top positive or over the
top negative there. You're giving them the bare
bones of facts and information, and allowing them
to create their own storylines. I think where it
differs when you're a club is you have to be poised
to capture the big moments that are positive for
your brand in a different way than you would
capture the big negative moments.

“So for us, if we call up a young player — the Devils, for example, are
a young team, one of the youngest teams in the league, and that can
actually be a positive. The wins haven't come over the last couple
years, but these young players are getting a lot of experience. So we
celebrate those as big hockey moments with, you know, big feature
stories, [a] sitdown interview with a guy who's getting his first call-
up or scores his first NHL goal. And I think that's where it's really
important to now dial up that style of content.
“But I think you should always present that neutral case as well. I
think that's how you build up your base traffic, because they know
they're gonna get that every time, even [after] a loss I'm gonna get
that that's gonna be available to me. I think that's super important.”

On balancing the X’s and O’s hockey coverage and non-hockey
content
“I think winning is the greatest shot of adrenaline to traffic and
engagement, but I think having that base of hockey coverage is
important in that when the team is good, they're gonna start coming
to you for that. The new, the casual hockey fans that are looking for a
new team, or they becoming interested in you because you're
winning are now going to latch onto that. I think that the personality
content has gotten so much more important over the last few years in
terms of marketing the star players, marketing the individual
personalities on your team, showing off that the team is endearing in
some ways. So the pie [with hockey info and personality and
entertainment content], I think, has shrunk a little bit…

“A perfect example is our social coordinator came to me a few
seasons ago and was like, ‘Why are we still live tweeting
games?’ for example. And we had a pretty significant
discussion. We have a couple of in-house reporters, Amanda
Stein being one of them, and she live-tweets games and we
oftentimes retweet her a lot. So like, why are we tweeting
almost the exact same content as her? Why don't we focus on
celebrating the hockey moments of the game, fulfilling
sponsor obligations, whatever it may be? And the live tweeting
is going to be from her. It's gonna be from fan accounts. It's
going to be from blogs. It's going to be from our local beat
reporters. It's going to be from Sportsnet. All of that is coming
from other accounts, so what can we provide that's different?

“Whether that's being in the tunnel while the players have come out for a
different angle, whether that's being on the bench for warmups or doing
something unique with POV glasses during a game, or having a different
angle of a goal celebration or different types of highlights that you're
taking from the broadcast — we can provide something a little bit
different that you're not seeing on all these other accounts.
“So that's where you evolve your strategy a little bit because you have
those conversations where before it was just a given we're live-tweeting
the game; we're the team, we're gonna live-tweet the game. So I think
that it's evolved from that where it's facts, news, get the stuff out to, now,
okay, let's give the fans a little bit something different on our feed. So
that's an example of what you're trying to talk about when you talk about
the pie shrinking and changing and evolving — I think it’s completely
changed.”

On the Devils’ intentional shift to and adoption of a new playful
personality and voice
“Yeah, I mean, it's a really good question. We do almost
everything by committee approach. Our social media team does
not operate in a bubble; we operate alongside marketing brand
strategy. Everything comes together for these moments. For us, it
was super important where we kind of took a step back [and] we
realized that we maybe we were under-resourced in a few areas,
maybe we were over-resourced in other areas and we were kind of
scrambling, and we were just trying to lke put out social media
content. And we all kind of came together and were, like, we need
more of a north star. We need a guiding principles of our brand
and what we are.

“That came right from the top of marketing and
came from brand and social. We all kind of sat in a
room and started talking about, okay, what are the
Devils? Who are the Devils? Who are we gonna be
five years from now? Who are we gonna be 10
years from now? There were a lot of meetings and
discussions that went on with this evolution of our
brand and how the voice should not only
complement who the brand is, but really work in
tandem with it to grow brand affinity.

“So we determined that we're the only pro sports team in New Jersey that
claims New Jersey as its own. You have a lot of New York teams that claim
New Jersey, you have some teams like the [New York] Red Bulls that do
both, but New York's in their name. So for us, we wanted to lean into that.
We are Jersey's team and there's a certain pride and toughness that comes
with New Jersey, and I've learned that over four years here. I love living in
New Jersey. I think it's awesome, and I think it's right up my alley. I think
we wanted to reflect that pride, that toughness, that roll off your shoulders
kind of mentality in our voice. There's kind of an attitude and a bit of a
swagger with it — and it's not necessarily that we're Wendy’s where we're
roasting people every single day, but we're waiting for it. Like, if you come
at us, we'll swing back. We're not gonna take it from anybody, we're gonna
dish it back. And I think
that plus a little bit of irreverent humor really kind of blends together with
that attitude and toughness to create who the Devils are on social media.

“We don't always have to roast fans and trolls, but we
got our fans asking for it, you know, they're tagging
people and they're tagging us and stuff. And you know,
we don't always have to do it, but, like, we're literally
the Devils. So if we wanna take a shot, we can and
that's okay. And if you don't like us, we don't like you
either, and there's a kind of this real authenticness to
that voice when it's coming from the Devils's brand; it
just seems right. You know, black and red and Devils
and New Jersey. There's this charismatic wittiness to it
that is very endearing to the people of New Jersey.

“And we've seen just the engagement ranking in the NHL, the follower
growth on certain platforms that we've identified as our growth
platforms, especially Instagram where our brand voice really shines a bit,
has been just so great the last couple of years. A lot of that I think is
because we have our north star and we're using it on a day-to-day basis
and it allows us to amplify big hockey moments in a different way.
“[A] perfect example is drafting Luke Hughes. We were able to get onto
SportsCenter because of the Stepbrothers meme that we did and a few
other posts that we had, because it was just perfect for what the Devils
are, what that moment was bringing someone else into the Jersey family.
So, yeah I think it's a lot of people, a lot of work, a lot of debate, a lot of
ideas. But now that we have that north star we know what we're building
towards and what our brand voice should sound like, which is fun.”

On how you know the new voice and personality is working
“I think like a lot of it is first identifying if that is within our brand voice
and kind of the direction that we want to go. We're not gonna try
something new if it's completely in stark contrast to what we're trying to
get across with that. So it may not hit right away or resonate right away,
but if it's building up to that brand voice, then it's a positive, right?
Because it's adding to the mix of what we're trying to do that amplifies
that voice, and maybe it doesn't work today, but it's laid the groundwork
that maybe it'll work some other times. So I think fear of failure is a thing
that plagues a lot of people — it doesn't with us. We're okay with, if
something didn't perform as well as we thought it would, because as long
as we know that we're building towards. It's part of that brand, voice, and
identity, then we know that it's a success that we've found something
that's fit into that.

“That being said, it's always great when you get
like ‘Yeah, I wish this other team was as open as
this.’ Or ‘I love this, I'd love to see someone else do
this’ or, blah, blah. I think that's when you start to
see those comments. The people on our ground
are coordinators and our managers, they're kind of
looking at that as a success story.

“We measure engagement rate per impression as one of our
success [metrics] as well for certain posts. So maybe it didn't
reach as many people as we wish it did, but the people that saw
it really liked it and really engaged with it. I think like that's
where we start to formulate wins.
So maybe it's like, ‘Ah, wow, that only got like 150,000
impressions, but the engagement rate per impression on that
was like 13% or something like that. Wow, that's really high.
That's a good post for us.’ So I think that's kind of how you
measure it with the hard stats, but you also measure it with the
fact that you are trying to build something and you're trying to
ladder up to what your brand identity is. So that's a win for us.”

On how the Devils’s brand north star and voice
permeates the organization beyond social channels
“I think it does filter out, it should filter out to almost
everything that you do. I think there are certain things
that are a little bit different — like, we have a lot of
partners that want to sponsor our win memes, for
example, [but] we just don't think that those would come
out as authentic if we slapped a partner logo on those.
And we wanted to just remain within our brand voice
and not necessarily [have the win memes be] sponsored
content.

“So there are certain times where you kind of hold off on integrating
it, but I think for the most part, like game presentation, everything
should have that tone to it because you're the Devils and everything
that you do should have that tone to it…I do wanna dial back just a
little bit on a brand voice, too, because I think that there are some
people [that] just think oh, the Devils are rude or they're always
roasting [people] or something like that. But if you see what we do in
the community and the amount of social justice initiatives, the
amount of helping different underserved parts of our community and
what we do for ‘hockey is for everyone’ and all those initiatives; it's
also welcoming people into our family, and once you're in our family,
you're family and we will be there for you and we'll protect you and
we'll rise to the occasion and you're a part of us, you're a part of our
tribe. And I think like that's part of the brand voice as well.

“I think that when you talk about integrating [the
voice[ into everything you do, you see it in what
we do in the community, you see it in our game
presentation, you see it in how ‘hockey is for
everyone’ moments show up on our social feeds
and in our initiatives and the money that we raise
and what we do for our Devils Youth Foundation.
So I think it does resonate in almost everything
that you do; it is who you are as a brand, and I
think that that's important.”

On how the disparate performance metrics across platforms
informs content strategy
“I think it depends on what the content is and what you're
trying — what's the goal of that content? What are you trying
to achieve with that content? So, like game day
entertainment-style content is going to be different than
certain partner pieces is going to be different than [the] good
that you're trying to do in the community. So you're gonna
measure those a little bit differently...We track everything
that goes out on social media, everything that goes out on our
website of course, but I think that how you measure success is
gonna show up differently depending on what it is.

“So for example, this is how I think about things — our Devils Draft
party, for example, you only have 1000 tickets, it's a smaller venue,
so you're only gonna have one thousand people. So let's say them
plus their family members makes two, three thousand people that
are hardcore in tune with that Draft party. But you have millions of
followers across your entire digital ecosystem. You're a global
brand because you're a hockey team, so your influence stretches out
far beyond that. So the vast majority of your followers don't
necessarily care or are in tune with your posts about your Draft
party — but it's still important because you're servicing the fans
that are coming to that Draft party. So it's a hard line where you go,
okay, well this wasn't as successful as some of our other posts about
the Draft. It's because a wider audience cares more about the Draft
picks and stories about them versus the party that you had.

“So you have to find ways to communicate that to
the people that it matters to the most and explain
to them [that] this is why it's not that it was a bad
post, it's not that it was a bad party; it was an
awesome party, it was killer and the fans that were
there loved it. But when you only sell 1000 tickets
to something, the splatter-spray technique of
engagement and getting it out on every platform —
it's not gonna perform as well as some of your
other posts.

“So I think it's about educating the key stakeholders on what
success is based on certain platforms, whether or not you
reach the right KPIs, whether or not you hit your mark. But
it's so dependent on what type of content you're trying to get
out there. Some of it you're like, I just want it in front of as
many eyeballs as possible. Other [content] is we're targeting
new fans that don't necessarily follow us right now, so the
impressions and the engagement rate might be a little bit
lower, but we're targeting the future of our fan base, so this
is why we're leaning into this program. So it's measuring
success differently for that program versus something that
services all of our current following, which is they're all
completely different, right?

“So I think that for me, you're looking at the
numbers, you have to be able to read between the
lines and understand why maybe something
wasn't as successful, but was it successful for what
we were trying to do with it? And I think that
those are two different questions you have to ask
yourself…

“So I think for us at the Devils, we've done a really good job over the
last couple of years where we tag every single post that goes out and
we have found that that helps us year over year measure success
against each other. You said it perfectly there, it's like the success of
community posts, for example. Well, if we're tagging all community
posts, I can see that last season, they performed below average in
terms of engagement rate per impression, we made some tweaks in
the post timing, the style of post, and we've seen a 20% gain in
average engagement rate per impression on this type of post. So I
think that we can get that granular now. I think that it's taken a little
while to get to that point and not every team has the same tools.
We’ve grown that [capability] over the last three years where we've
grown our arsenal of resources and external vendors to be able to get
to that point where we can really measure success against ourselves.

“And I think that that's super important because success in the
league is great, but there's a lot of outlying factors — if you're not
winning games or if other teams are winning more than you
teams are jumping up the standings, teams are doing things
differently. Those are very innovative people working for those
other teams as well. I think measuring success against yourself
becomes more and more important, especially when the
performance on the ice or on the field, wherever it is in pro
sports, has kind of flatlined a bit or is kind of steady. And that
helps you measure, like, okay, are we doing things internally
correct? Are we building on what we did last year? Are we
building our strategy? So when you can get granular and look at
the individual statistics like that, I think that that helps you tell
your story a little bit better.”

Tell us about Central Oklahoma (Chris’s alma mater)
“It’s a division two school and I think that, if I remember
correctly, they're a very science-leaning school. I think
they have one of the best criminal investigation and
forensic science schools in the nation. And also I think
they might be known for funeral services, like morgues
and medical examiner schools. I think they changed over
some of their colleges when CSI was super popular, so I
think they started doing forensic sciences and stuff like
that. So I remember them being very science and
mathematics [focused].

“And I'm biased, but our club hockey team, I mean, they won, they
were in the national championship picture for the ACHA quite
often and they played against teams that you would expect to be
division one, so they're a higher-up club team. And then their
division two basketball teams and soccer teams have always been
strong, both men and women's. One of my favorite things was
broadcasting the division two regional tournament during division
two March Madness and that was really fun. Those teams were
really talented, really fun.
“I would say their football team, I mean, maybe it's better now, but
when I was there it was not one of their primary sports. They were
very soccer and basketball heavy. And then of course the club
hockey team as well.”

Who were Chris’s favorite broadcasters growing up?
“Doc Emrick is the GOAT. But [former longtime Buffalo Sabres
broadcaster] Rick Jeanneret was my childhood. He's amazing,
and I'm so happy for him for retiring this past year. Everything
the Sabres did for him content-wise was so classy. If someone
from the Sabres is listening, you guys did a fantastic job. And
then Gus Johnson, which is a little dark horse. I was so sad
when he stopped doing NFL games and I think he just started
doing NFL games again recently for FOX. When I was younger,,
he just made every play, whether it was a two yard run or a 50
yard hail mary sound like it was the game on the line and it was
just so exciting. So those would have to be my top three.”

The most memorable story that Chris wrote or produced or was
a part of in his time with the Oilers
“I have a couple. I did a long-form story on Zack Kassian's battle
with substance abuse. Him and I sat together for well over an
hour and he really opened up to me. I formulated the story kind
of around his love for riding his motorcycle up and down the
California coast, and how he used that as an escape when he
thought his hockey career was over. And I think that fans will
know him as the toothy guy that gets into all the scraps and hits
people and everything, but when you listen to what he said about
all that stuff, it really made me see that the person kind of
behind that personification of him. I thought that was great.

“Then the other one was when Dave Semenko passed away, I
got to write a story called ‘This is Dave’ and everyone else
was writing stories about him being like Wayne Gretzky's
bodyguard and the toughest enforcer in the league — I
wanted to tell a different story. So I met his daughter at a
coffee shop, and her and I really got into it and talked about
who he was off the ice. And I got a chance to tell a few stories
of how he would watch Disney movies with her…He used to
watch [a princess movie] with his daughter and he used to
quote the movie and it was very endearing and it kind of told
a different side of the story of one of the toughest, meanest
son of a guns to play hockey. It told a story of him as a big
softie and I really enjoyed writing that.”

How the Zack Kassian story came together
“It started with like conversations with PR and how I would
tell the story and questions I would ask. Then we had to
wait a few days while we heard back from him and he was
kind of on the fence about it. I had already done some
stories with him before, so he knew who I was and I told
him, ‘Look, you'll get to read it before it goes out. I wanna
make sure that I'm telling the story from the right
perspective and I don't want anything to get out that would
harm you or your family in any way’ and getting buy-in from
PR and they read it over and over again just to make sure…

“I remember being very proud because there
weren't really many corrections to it; not much
changed from the story and it got to the point
where he came up the next week and clapped me
on the shoulder and was like, ‘Hey, I really
appreciate that story.’ I think it came together just
through conversations, but it was definitely one of
my favorite pieces I've ever written. It's called ‘The
Ride,’ if you ever wanna read it.”

The player Chris worked with throughout his entire career who had the
most outside personality
“Dougie Hamilton is great, he's got a great attitude.He loves it when we
have new technology on the bench, new cameras and stuff like that. He’s
really interested in different things, so I would say that on the Devils he's
probably one of the best.
“Pat Maroon is another one that really sticks out to me. He's just a great
guy to work with. He's super loud, fun, accountable, he'll do interviews
after 5-0 losses the same way he'll do them after 5-0 wins. He's a winner,
he's got multiple Stanley Cups now. And he is an emotional guy when it
comes to his son. Just a huge personality and he's a lot of fun to be
around, and I think that every locker room needs a guy like that, and
they're hard to come by.”

Chris’s #1 guiding principle or mantra when it comes
to effective content in sports
“Fans first. Are the fans gonna like it? I may like it, but
are our fans going to like it? And does it funnel back to
the voice that we've chosen for the fanbase that we
think resonates with them the most? So I think that
sometimes when you get overworked or are in a
bubble, content teams [are] producing content that
they think is great, but it's not necessarily something
that their fanbase wants to see or is asking for.

“So for me, it's fan-first, and does it funnel back to
that priority?...I think you have that north star, you
know, the primary traits [of the average fan], and
the difference comes in where you're trying to reach
new fans and grow your fan base and grow the
diversity of your fan base. I think that's where you
kind of have a little bit more wiggle room. But as
long as it all funnels back to who you are as a
brand, what your identity is, I think that you could
use that as your north star or your guiding
principles.”

What's the hockey player cliche that comes to
mind for Chris
“The very first one is ‘We've gotta play a full 60.’ I
think I've heard that phrase 3000 times over my
career the past decade. After almost every single
loss, you can count on someone in the locker room
to be like, ‘We've gotta learn to play a full 60…”

The most memorable game Chris has ever been at, whether for work or as a
fan
“Probably my first home playoff win when I worked for the Oilers. I got to do
the walk-off interviews, and I couldn't hear myself talk. I think my first one
was with Jordan Eberle, and I think we were walking out of the tunnel and he
was like, ‘I can't hear you.’ So we had to walk back into the tunnel so I could
tell him the question and say, ‘and then I'm gonna nod and I'm gonna ask you
this question.’ And then we had the two questions and then we went back out
and we did the interview.
“I remember it being just so loud. I was shaking, I had so much adrenaline
after doing a two question interview. I couldn't tell you what he said, I
couldn't hear it. The fans were going nuts and it was a pretty cool experience.
So I would say that's probably my most memorable game and it's because of
that moment.”

The NHL arena with the best press meal and then the arena with the best press
box food
“I think it’s Chicago [for both]. It's ridiculous. They feed you three meals in the
press box and they're all really good. It’s mac and cheese night where it's BBQ
mac and cheese, and they have lobsters, and build your own Italian dip and beef
on weck, beef dip. It's just high quality food, too. I think that they're almost
everybody in hockey media will tell you [that] Chicago is number one. It's insane.
“And then down in the meal room, besides Chicago, LA always does a pretty
good job. For some reason when we were there with the Oilers, there was always
an ice cream station and there was always either Chinese or Mexican and it was
good.
“And then the other one is Carolina. They do barbecue; there's a full pulled pork,
roasted pig every time I've gone there for dinner. It's just so good.”

The Devils player with the best social media and why
“PK [Subban] is no longer a devil, but he'd be the low-
hanging fruit. He's got the best presence. But I'll tell you a
sneaky one that nobody really knows — it’s probably Tomas
Tatar. And it's not necessarily because what he posts himself,
but he's always in the back of other players’ posts and he's
always doing something or making a funny face. Or, you
know, PK would always film the plane and for some reason,
Tatar was just always in it front and center. And he loves the
Devils social media, too, so he likes almost every single post.
He retweets a lot, he shares a lot, and he'll go up to our social
media team and he'll tell them, ‘Oh, I love that. It's so funny.’

Who's gonna be the breakout player for the Devils next year?
“I would say probably Dougie Hamilton. He is kind of low-hanging fruit
because he is already an all-star-level player. But he had a down year last
year [and] he was hampered by injuries. I'm a big subscriber to the belief
that the first year for a free agent or a trade acquisition you almost kind
of throw out the window because they're learning their new players, their
new system, their new coaching staff, the new walk into the arena, the
new training routine — everything is different for them.
“I think that a lot of times you see that first year with a new club players
struggle. You forget that they're human beings and they got a life outside
of hockey. So I think that, you know, [he’s] healthy, with better players
around him. I think the Devils have done a pretty good job of insulating
him a little bit. I think like he's gonna take a step forward this year.”

Chris’s Social Media All-Star to Follow
“I've never actually met her in person, but I follow her on LinkedIn and
Twitter — I think her name is Jess Smith. @WarJessEagle is her Twitter.
She's a great follow for young professionals because she amplifies so many
cool and interesting and innovative things, and she always kind of adds
her own perspective on where certain algorithms are going or different
industry trends. She used to work for the [New York] Rangers, worked for
[Stewart Haas Racing]. I like following her on social media…I've never
met her in person, but as far as like social following, from a young
professional standpoint, she does things that maybe I wish I would do a
little bit more and amplifying different ideas and new and creative things.
And I think that's interesting because not many people are doing it. You
do it a little bit yourself, too. I've noticed it's kind of amplifying cool things
that you like. And I think that more people should do that because it's just
more sharing of ideas.”

Where to find Chris and the Devils on social media
“You know what's funny? I probably wouldn't have social media for
me personally, if I didn't need it for work. I don't really post a lot
myself, but you can follow me on Twitter @TheChrisWescott. My
Instagram is private, I kind of keep that just to my family, but my
Twitter I tweet a little bit about the Devils and my observations of
the team. But I think I wanna start tweeting more like Jess; maybe,
we'll see.”
The Devils are @NJDevils on every platform and Chris recommends
paying attention closely to TikTok and Instagram — “we’ve got a lot
of fun ideas and we’re looking forward to growing [those]
platforms.”

Thanks again to Chris for being so generous
with his time to share his knowledge,
experience, and expertise with me!
For more content and episodes, subscribe to
the podcast, follow me on LinkedIn and on
Twitter @njh287, and visit
www.dsmsports.net.
@njh287; www.dsmsports.net

Episode 226 Snippets: Chris Wescott of the New Jersey Devils

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Episode 226 Snippets: Chris Wescott of the New Jersey Devils