C.J. Toledano is the Founder of Follow Through Studio, a creative sports studio is at the intersection of sports and comedy. We worked together at Bleacher Report, where he was pivotal in building and scaling the Social Moments team that fueled B/R's social growth and then was the creative director for House of Highlights.
We talk about why pop culture, comedy and fashion are so integral to sports fandom experience these days, how he broke into comedy and how excited he is to be a father super soon.
We recorded this about a month ago when the Lakers were medium trash and kinda washed. Sadly, C.J's team has fallen even further since our conversation.
Here are some of our favorite quotes from the conversation.
On playing hoops with other writers and comedians:
5:32 But networking doesn't work when you can clearly tell that people are schmoozing and just like you, put your money or work right. But like basketball, it's like everyone's guard is down and everyone just wants to have fun and just like play basketball and get a sweat in. And really, that's where the real conversations were happening and like, you're really getting to know people, and you're almost like proving whether you're a good person to collaborate with.
On becoming a dad
26:21 I want to bring my upcoming son like, I love going to those All-Star events and seeing the dads and parents being able to bring their kids to those events and saying, like, Hey, this is what I work at. And like, the kids be like, Wow, my parents job is awesome. So like, I'm really looking forward to that.
His passion for comedy and creativity:
34:34 And yeah, just like when I realized comedy was a job you could have and was watching stuff and then watching it again and dissecting, like, who wrote this? Who directed this? And yeah, that's just been really what I wanted to do ever since I was a younger kid. What I realized I wasn't going to play in the NBA, I was like, how do I have comedy as a job or just work in film and TV? And so, yeah, it was. I've just been always so obsessed with pop culture, and I think I had immigrant parents who moved here in the 70s from the Philippines. And they moved here like many immigrants for the American Dream. And so while they moved here and they still spoke Tagolog to each other and ate Filipino food, they wanted me and my brother and sister to be Americanized and be fully integrated into this culture.
On finding that sweet spot between brand partnerships and great creative:
43:10 And so I know that there are so many other people like myself out there, from comedians to artists to directors who didn't have a traditional school or education to making these videos that are ultimately being funded because of sponsors, right? And every one of these. Like I said, athletes, leagues, publishers, a lot of these things are funded by sponsors and they need to make money. And so what we do really well is we find a middle ground to telling really compelling and entertaining stories or series of premises and working with talent to where that brand sponsor is getting the best out of their dollar because we found a way to tell these stories that are compelling, but also, you know, kind of giving the credibility to the sponsor like funded a really great piece of content because the experts aren't just people that are like, Oh, I read this in a book in college that if you do it this way, when we're just like, Oh, we want to make art, we want to make people laugh, we want to do the thing that's actually cool and genuine. That is making us as fans laugh and also laughing and enjoy and also getting through that brand message, too.
On getting that dream client in year one:
44:35 So the dream client was Jordan and Nike, which we were able to do in our first year. And so that has, was one a blessing but it makes everything else going forward. So how do we top that? I think it to me, it's probably the NBA. I think like with 90s NBA, I think fans still have such a passion for that in terms of their clothing, of retro stuff. And also like NBA inside stuff like NBA VHS tapes and stuff like that. I want to work with the NBA for generations to come and like, man, that was an era. From the way the clothes had worked and from the way the content was out there and the way people consume the NBA on like this is really cool. I want a chance with the NBA to touch on one of those department so that we can have that affect on our fans and future generations, so hopefully crossing our fingers.
C.J. Toledano, Founder of Follow Through Studio