Some of you might know the name Berry Tramel.
He's a longtime columnist in Oklahoma. He's basically a legend in those parts, and he's a great guy (had him on my podcast back when Brent Venables took over in Norman).
And now he owes Bob Stoops $1.5 million.
Never seen a story like this. If you dig inside stories on media and you have 10-15 minutes, this is worth the time.
The Rise and Fall of America's Most Ambitious Sports Media Company
An excerpt:
Berry Tramel is not a man who makes rash decisions. But he had taken a risky leap.
Last September, following more than three decades at The Oklahoman, the legendary sports reporter had quit his job to launch a sports journalism startup called Sellout Crowd alongside 16 other writers and editors. He’d signed a contract with the fledgling outlet and had already published his first three stories.
There was just one step left to go. Mike Koehler, the outlet’s CEO as well as Tramel’s longtime friend, told him the site’s investors wanted Tramel to have equity in the company. Tramel was hesitant — he said just wanted to write. But if the investors wanted it, who was he to say no. So he went and signed paperwork giving him a 2.5% stake in the company.
“I went over there,” Tramel told The Frontier,“ and made the biggest mistake of my life.”
It was as much a celebration as it was a document signing, he said. People were passing out cigars and he was caught up in the excitement of the endeavor, the creation of a new outlet that could cover sports in Oklahoma better and deeper than ever before.
But Tramel said he later learned Sellout Crowd hadn’t raised the millions of dollars in cash to get the site off the ground that Koehler had claimed. What the startup had gotten instead was a $1.5 million loan from Toby Keith, Keith’s business partner Hunter Miller, and former University of Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops that carried a 12% interest rate. And now, unaware, he was on the hook for it.
He's a longtime columnist in Oklahoma. He's basically a legend in those parts, and he's a great guy (had him on my podcast back when Brent Venables took over in Norman).
And now he owes Bob Stoops $1.5 million.
Never seen a story like this. If you dig inside stories on media and you have 10-15 minutes, this is worth the time.
The Rise and Fall of America's Most Ambitious Sports Media Company
An excerpt:
Berry Tramel is not a man who makes rash decisions. But he had taken a risky leap.
Last September, following more than three decades at The Oklahoman, the legendary sports reporter had quit his job to launch a sports journalism startup called Sellout Crowd alongside 16 other writers and editors. He’d signed a contract with the fledgling outlet and had already published his first three stories.
There was just one step left to go. Mike Koehler, the outlet’s CEO as well as Tramel’s longtime friend, told him the site’s investors wanted Tramel to have equity in the company. Tramel was hesitant — he said just wanted to write. But if the investors wanted it, who was he to say no. So he went and signed paperwork giving him a 2.5% stake in the company.
“I went over there,” Tramel told The Frontier,“ and made the biggest mistake of my life.”
It was as much a celebration as it was a document signing, he said. People were passing out cigars and he was caught up in the excitement of the endeavor, the creation of a new outlet that could cover sports in Oklahoma better and deeper than ever before.
But Tramel said he later learned Sellout Crowd hadn’t raised the millions of dollars in cash to get the site off the ground that Koehler had claimed. What the startup had gotten instead was a $1.5 million loan from Toby Keith, Keith’s business partner Hunter Miller, and former University of Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops that carried a 12% interest rate. And now, unaware, he was on the hook for it.
