UMBC Athletics Director Discusses Viral Upset, Social Media Strategy

@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
On episode 192 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil
chatted with Zach Seidel, Director of Sports Marketing
Communications and Digital Media for the UMBC Athletics.
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.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 192: Zach Seidel

Zach’s Career Path
“I was in high school and I was ready to start my senior year and my school
accidentally had mislabeled something and they gave me a half a schedule
and said ‘Well you registered for parallel enrollment at a community
college.’”
To make up for the credits, Zach had to do an internship
Zach’s dad was friendly with Steve Levy who was the the Director of Athletic
Communications at UMBC and Levy recognized the growing need for video
in their department and Zach took that gig doing video highlights and
eventually helping to lead their web streaming

Zach also got to accompany them to the NCAA Tournament:
“I went down for the NCAA tournament in March of ‘08 and got to film the game.” And while
down there, he also happened to see Davidson when Steph Curry took them on their incredible
run
Zach ended up getting a scholarship for an academic program at UMBC so began his undergrad
there while continuing to work for the athletics department → “I started doing more and more
and more…
“I had no idea what I wanted to do...I always liked working with film, my goal was to be a
director. I was always looking at film schools [but Zach knew he’d have to pay and incur debt for
any film school]... I just kind of knew that I [had] this scholarship. I'm kind of a homebody...I’m
quiet, I likeI like my family. I have a very tight group of friends and I didn't really want to go too
far but I didn't really want to go to a big school...UMBC was really the only one that fit
(everything I wanted)...”

On sports communications going from side gig to career
“My junior year, the Athletic Director at the time, Dr. Brown [said]
‘We need a video department. I’ll hire you, give you a stipend’...So I
was a junior in charge of a video department at a D1 school...That’s
when I realized, ‘I really like college athletics and this is what I want
to do.”

On how video and streaming became more important as time went on
“It just kind of changed on a year-by-year basis. When we started, [streamed games]
was a [paid] subscription service…[Then] y senior year or the year after I graduated
the conference a got a new commissioner and she was [said] ’We're making a digital
network, all the games are going to be free, you can run commercials on it but you
need to get your games out there.'...That was 2012-2013, that’s where it started to
change [and] it wasn't just we're getting games on because people are paying, it was
more we have to get games on because everyone is starting to put games on. So you
want everyone to be able to. Coaches were like ‘This is great for recruiting…’ We just
kept doing more and more and then the conference about five years ago signed a
deal with ESPN...where all of our basketball games were required to be on ESPN3 or
ESPN+. And then each year you started adding more…

“I think where (the importance of video) really hit everyone the most
was when LSU's football started putting out those amazing videos
during their championship year... I think that's when he saw a lot of
people administrators were like ‘Oh this is a good thing’....I think that
was the eye-opening experience for a lot of people who didn't quite
understand video... “

On the need for consistent quality of video conference-wide especially for
streaming
“I think [all the schools in their conference] understand the importance of it,
but I also think that some schools value it differently. We pride ourselves on —
when we put something on ESPN, it’s going to be a broadcast worthy of, if they
needed to pull it to the main Network they're going to pull it to the main
network... We have students working it but it's about as top level consistently —
we’re told by ESPN (our broadcast) is one of the best in the conference, if not
the best...and that's no credit to the people in our department...

“This spring with all the sports going on and having so many
broadcasts at the same time, it shifted a tiny bit to ‘We need to make
sure that we get a broadcast on the air. We need to make sure that
people can watch.’ So our volleyball matches — normally we had an
announcer, multiple cameras, and replay…(but) this year because of
COVID we actually played in our auxiliary gym...so we just had a
camera, but we made sure that we had natural audio...In this
climate...with limited fans, it’s just important to get the broadcast up
there…

What separates the schools that can consistently produce a volume of great content
“It’s something we want to do, obviously...It’s mainly just a bodies thing. Some
schools have departments dedicated to that and they have the ability to get those
really nice cameras and everything. And we have those on campus through our new
media studio, but the new media studio is used by everyone on campus...Between
running the streaming and doing sports information things...it’s really just a bodies
problem. We don’t have enough bodies for the positions to do that…
“We’ve had cool videos made like that. We’ve had students that have volunteered to
do them and we’ve done them ourselves. But, in a perfect world like LSU, they were
chugging out two or three of those a day. That’s just not something many schools
outside of the upper upper power five can really accommodate.”

Priorities in allocating resources for UMBC
“You want to be fair to everybody...That was one of the issues coming out of it — as
great as the upset over Virginia was, you didn't want it to create a perception within the
school that we only cared about men's basketball. And you didn't want that perception
to really seep throughout the athletic department...So we we really wanted to make
sure, and it's my philosophy too, that we really show the same respect to every
team…My philosophy is we want to do everything and show the same respect for every
team we can...We’re here to show all 17 of our sports. We’re trying to provide these
student athletes with the best experience possible, and it’s up to us to promote them all
equally.”

How the UVA upset and spotlight on MBB helped UMBC as a university and
athletic department as a whole
“There has definitely been more interest in the school. I know for a fact that
one of the more interesting aspects of that from a school administration
standpoint is that the average SAT score of the average applicant went up.
So it wasn't that we were getting more applicants, it’s that we were getting a
higher-quality applicant, academically...And that was in correlation to the
attention that (men’s) basketball got. So that was a good thing...

“It did have an effect where more people were searching for the university and
trying to find more information. It really put us on the map not just
athletically but academically. And all of our coaches will tell you it helps
recruit. Now when they go recruiting, instead of saying who you are, it’s ‘Yeah
,we’re the school whose basketball team beat Virginia.’ So that helps, as well. I
think the school will tell you that they’ve always supported athletics. But it
does help them, too. It was part of our advertising for the school. You drive
around the neighborhood that the school is in and you still see the 16 over 1
stuff. So it’s been helpful to both athletics and the academic side of the school.”

How Athletics and University Comms work together
“There were more ‘Hey would you guys mind retweeting or reposting you this
article from our account.’ There were more requests from the academic side of
the school to highlight, on social media especially, stuff from the academic side
of the school. Alumni relations stuff...As someone there said, ‘You have way
more followers than the school right now.’ So it's the best way to get info out
there...
“It’s still the same people we always chatted with from our school institutional
advancement department; that's kind of the public relations of it. So it’s the
same people we always dealt with, it’s just a little bit more them asking us for
stuff than us going to them for questions.”

How smaller schools like UMBC can best capitalize on those moments
“I think it's hard to prepare for something so unexpected. I don't want to say we weren’t prepared,
but I don't want to say we were, if that makes sense. I don't think we had anything ready, like, ‘Okay
well, if we win we're going to do this, this, and this.’ But it wasn't like we were all expecting to
lose...We had all the key players there, we had a couple of the vice presidents of the school, the
president of the school was there. We have the school’s PR arm there, we had our athletics
communications. So we were all there in case something did happen.
“So we were ready in that aspect where, after the game happened there were just a ton of meetings
the next day (about) how we're proceeding this way, this way, and this way...hen we have big events
like that, even when they're athletic events, the school does send the key players involved, where if
something does happen, we have preparation meetings — ‘Okay, if this happens, we’re going to be
ready, we’ll all meet and we’ll figure it out this way so the school is prepared.’
“I remember when COVID hit, we had a pandemic flu plan ready to go. It was from, like, ‘06 — they
had been thinking about it for 15 years. We’re a very prepared university.”

Advice Zach would give to the next UMBC
“If you have a situation like we had, you need to make sure that — it's tough to get the
people, get the bodies, the people there to work it. But I think you should make sure that
you would have one extra communications person from the school and from the athletic
department there. Like I remember the year after us Gardner-Webb was beating Virginia
at the half and I remember people were like, ‘Well, why aren’t they tweeting as much
during the game?’ And I think it was just because they had the SID down there.
“So when you see these things happen, it helps to have a communications person from
the school and from Athletics there to kind of take the burden off of the sport contact.
Because a lot of time they just send the sport contact when these things happen. So I
think that schools should just say ‘Hey we're going to send an extra person just in case
anything happens.’ That's my recommendation, at least. Even if nothing happens at least
you were prepared.”

The levers to pull when the time in the national spotlight comes for a small school
“You know, you got to have merchandise ready. Our bookstore did more sales than it
had done in a couple years combined. You gotta make sure that that stuff is ready to
go. You gotta make sure your school admissions department is ready to go. It was
weird timing (for us) because the game against Virginia happened when people were
already accepting (offers). If something like this happens earlier in the year, you gotta
talk to admissions people (to get it on recruiting letters).
“So you gotta make sure all these departments are ready to go. You gotta talk to your
school creative services and graphics department. Get signs ready, get graphics ready.
The legal department — I’m pretty sure trademarked ‘16 over 1,’ so there are just so
many entities involved in the situation that have to (execute) in a very quick span.”

On retaining the audience and how the value has persisted over time
“I remember we got up to 111,000 followers (on Twitter). And I
remember saying telling people privately that if we can get to the start
of next basketball season with 50,000, I’ll be ecstatic...And as of
today, we’re three years out and we’re still over 70 (thousand). So I
was proven very wrong in that aspect.

“It does help. You do get more fans and more interest. We do see
more engagement than we ever did before, even if it’s just from
alums. I know alums who have told me ‘I’m active on social now
because I follow you guys.’ Like I said during that game at halftime —
‘Even if we get just one person who had never heard of us before sees
something and it catches their eye and makes them want to learn
about us, we’ve done our job.’

“It could be a random person in Arizona or something who had never
heard of us. And they see us post something about our lacrosse team
and (they learn we) have a lacrosse team. If you can just get one
person for any of the programs — that’s kind of the job of the social
accounts, to get it out there. And we have such a wide audience, that
even if most people ignore us, the chances are we’re going to get one
or two people who (didn’t have us on their minds) and look into it.
That’s how I view it.”

On UMBC becoming a symbol of underdogs in sports
“Yeah, when stuff happens, we’ll start to notice our mentions going up and
occasionally we’ll get a DM, I might even get a private DM on my personal
account. One time I even got an email from somebody from one of the schools
(pulling an upset) I remember one time one of the schools — there was there
was a big upset in a sport and I got a DM on my personal account [saying] ‘Help
we have no SIDs at this event, what do we do?’...
“We try not to jump in there you know every time there's an upset, we try not
to. That gets annoying, we have to pick our spots. And that’s tough…

“Every time there’s an upset, we love it when they mention us. It doesn't mean
that we're going to answer back or or pump it up. Because we have to be very
careful —if you do it too much you risk being annoying and you gotta pick your
spots [because] if we do say something or answer back, not to be arrogant, but
it does become meaningful. So we don't want to mention it all the time, we try
not to mention the game unless it's an anniversary of their game or something
happened to bring it up...Anytime anyone mention the state of Virginia or
Virginia program losing a regular season game in any sport, people mention us
and try to bring us into it. We don’t care, we just straight up don’t care.

“Our whole philosophy with it was we didn’t celebrate Virginia losing, we
celebrated us winning and when people try and bring us into it and rip Virginia, we
want no part of it...It wasn’t Virginia lost, it was the 16-seed won. Not that the one
seed lost. That’s how we look at it. And if anyone’s knocking Virginia, we’re not
going to have any part of it. We’re all about celebrating the upsets, not kicking them
while they’re down...If it comes, we bring it up...But we don’t bring it up out of the
blue...we have to pick our spots.”
“I think there’s a fine line between — and I have no problem when schools (mock
losers)...I’m happy all these schools have personalities, but I, personally — I don’t
think it’s wrong — I personally don’t think it’s something I would do or would want
my school to do to directly mock an opponent. If it’s an archrival and it’s a playful
thing, that’s one thing. But, I don’t know, they’re college kids. That’s my thing; in
the end, they’re still 18-22 year-olds. It can be a school pride thing without
knocking others down.”

What’s a normal busy sports Saturday at UMBC for Zach?
“In a normal (non-pandemic) crossover season, (like) February — We could
have a basketball game or two basketball games and if I'm not working them or
helping with the broadcast or helping with stats — if those games are wins, I’ll
have to make the highlight packages for men’s and women’s. But also there
could be a home softball tournament that I have to be the scorekeeper at and
write the recaps for. Also not many people know this, but after the Virginia
game, I was up til 3am writing a recap for a softball tournament we hosted that
day.

“There’s a lot going. Then if lacrosse, do we need help with that? If not, then, okay,
highlights. There were times early this year where, a couple games at home, I have to
write a recap for two separate sports because I help out as an SID for volleyball and
softball — so this spring, especially. Recaps for them if they’re both wins, both
highlights. Sometimes volleyball plays two matches in a day so that’s two separate
highlights for them. If softball wins, this year we started doing video for them, so if
softball wins and they play doubleheaders, that’s two sets. So that’s four sets of
highlights. Oh, men’s lacrosse won? Five highlights. Women’s lacrosse won, six [sets of]
highlights.
“So you have to do all those packages .Add in baseball — they play a doubleheader —
that’s another two set of highlights. Now you’re adding the recaps for that. If I’m
making those and there's a game going on in one of my sports, I’m doing social. So
there’s a lot going on.”

On the growing possibility of automated recaps and highlights
“I understand why places do it. you know. I personally think you still need that
human touch, you still technically are the school PR department. What is a recap
for college but not literally a PR release about what happened? You can't really — I
don't know want to say spin — but you can't really highlight things that are positive
in a loss via a computer. So you still need that human element to it.
“Highlights — there are programs and companies that cut the games up as they
happen, but you still gotta post them in the right places. You still gotta put them on
your website, you gotta put them on YouTube, you gotta put them on Instagram,
you gotta put them on Twitter, put them on Facebook, so there’s still a human
element to that, as well.”

On priorities content-wise for a game
“I think the recaps are still the most important aspect of it. I know for my sports
it's always recap then highlights. It’s important to get the information out there,
but with the advent of Twitter LiveCut it makes it easier in that you can post the
highlighters during the game as they happen. And I think that’s been the biggest
key because there's not as much of a rush. Or if there is a game-winning goal in
overtime, you can put that out there before you do the highlight package...then
you can do the recap and then you can do the highlights. Because the important
moment has already been put out there.
“I still think you need to get your release, but the way things have changed you
can do video as (the game) is going on.”

Tell us about the UMBC Retrievers mascot named ‘True Grit’ and where that name
comes from
“No one really knows (where the name comes from), to be honest. It’s on our school
website. People think that, I think there was a dog. The first live dog that was on
campus was called ‘Campus Sam.’ That’s at least what our archives say. Then
somewhere along the lines, True Grit just kind of popped up. Some people think it has
to do with the movie from the ‘60s, but no one really knows, it just kind of popped up
out of nowhere.”
[The athletic department’s annual awards are called ‘The Grittys’]

The coolest follower or shoutout on Twitter that UMBC got during or
after the UVA upset
“We got a lot but I think the coolest one was Aaron Rodgers shouting
out Joe Sherburne, who’s a Wisconsin guy from our team...You can’t
really top Aaron Rodgers.”

The thinking behind live-tweeting the UVA game mostly on the main UMBC
Athletics account and not the MBB one
“It was more just because of the moment we were in, (I) figured it was an
opportunity for all of our sports. If we went from the (main) athletic account and
somebody followed then the next day they saw we were tweeting about track and
field or something — which is kind of what happened. That was my
recommendation. I think what happens now is people immediately go to the
team account, so even in three years things have changed.
“I think either/or is fine. There’s really no right or wrong answer in the
situation…”

Zach’s favorite athlete growing up and why
Zach notes he had multiple favorite athletes as he grew up
At his youngest, it was Cal Ripken Jr.
Then Ray Lewis
Then Alexander Ovechkin

The best guiding principle or mantra that Zach likes to instill in students he teaches at
UMBC
“It sounds corny, but do your best, work hard, show up on time...If this is something you
want to do just keep trying, man. Keep plugging away at it. And if you work hard people
notice these things. In college athletics, the number one thing you can have is
dependability, especially student workers.
“Like we had this past weekend, we had a 11am men’s lacrosse game against the number 16
ranked team in the country. And Saturday mornings aren’t college students’ favorite time
to be up. They would’ve had to be there at 9 or 10am, but we had some staff there. So,
dependability. Just be dependable…”
[Zach talk about he learned to manage for all sorts of different UMBC sports and honed
various skill sets]

Will and should DC become a state?
“I try not to get into politics. I mean, I guess. They’re US citizens. I think them
and Puerto Rico...I think that them and Puerto Rico should be states. I don’t
believe in taxation without representation. I’m an independent (politically)...As
I tell people, ‘How is it fair that you have this district of almost a million people
that doesn’t have representation?’ You have several states that have below that
population that do...
“That’s just my personal opinion. Not to get political — it has nothing to do with
it being blue or red — it’s just I think if people live in a place that’s getting
taxed, it should be a state.”

The most memorable pro sports game Zach has ever attended
Zach recalls multiple games (he’s been to quite a few)
Washington Capitals game when they scored 10 goals
Baltimore Orioles game when they clinched the AL East in 2014
Baltimore Ravens game when Jamal Lewis rushed for 295 yards and
was at the Ravens first-ever playoff game in 2001

The best meal to get in Baltimore and where to get it
“Any crabcake from anywhere will be fine. I don’t have a personal
favorite, they’re all good…”

What’s the one post from the UVA night that Zach is most proud of
“It wasn’t even the most popular one...Someone tweeted at us ‘Look, their admissions is
going to go way up,’ and I (replied) “Woo new buildings!” in all caps. But I was so
excited (that) I made a typo (in the tweet) and I just thought that was funny. It was just
an academic joke. Everyone knows more students (means) more buildings, I was just
trying to make a funny college joke.
“And just the fact that there was even a typo in there — it was an accidental typo — but
I thought that made it funny. So I always just remember ‘Woo new buildngs' because I
forgot the ‘i.’...”

The next DC sports team to win a major sports title will be ____
“Well it will absolutely not be the Wizards (NBA). I’m kidding about that, but they are
in a rebuilding phase...I have nothing against the Wizards. You know, being a Wizards
fan is tough sometimes. I guess the (Capitals) are the most well-equipped for it right
now.
“I’m not a fan of the Football Team (NFL) as a Baltimore guy. I despise the Football
Team almost as much as the Steelers. I hope they never win it, even though I have some
good friends that are fans of them. If I had to say one, I would go Capitals then the
Football Team then the Wizards…

“The Castles — the World Tennis Team, I believe they won some
titles. DC United has a ways to go. The Spirit (NWSL) are pretty
good...In all honesty, and I didn’t forget them — I was going to end it
with this — probably the Mystics (WNBA). Because they’ve got Elena
Della Donne, you got one of the best players in the world, why can’t
they win? That’s my final answer, the Mystics.”

Where to find Zach and UMBC Athletics on digital/social media
Zach is on Twitter @seidel_z and not really active on Instagram
UMBC is all over @UMBCAthletics and all their sports accounts

Thanks again to Zach 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.

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