On episode 270 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil chatted with Nirupam Singh, Creative Director, Ghostwriter, Strategic Consultant — motorsports and sports tech businesses..
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
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Nirupam Singh on Fan Development, Growth, and the Future of Formula 1
1. @njh287; www.dsmsports.net
On episode 270 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil
chatted with Nirupam Singh, Creative Director, Ghostwriter, Strategic
Consultant — motorsports and sports tech businesses..
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 270: Nirupam Singh
2. Nirupam’s Career Path
“There's a lot there to cover with ten years. The best way I have described
myself in the last ten years is through video content, photo content,
partnerships and navigating my own space and skill stacking along the way.
From video, photo, partnerships, learning, marketing, learning how to write
properly, how to speak to clients, there's a wealth of knowledge I've gained
over the past ten years to be able to kick start my agency now. A lot of that
focus has been around motorsports, but if you're into motorsports you kind
of have an interest in other sports as well. So my journey across those ten
years where I'm like, wow, I've learned a lot. So I want to implement it with
the people that I love speaking to all the time…”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
3. On deciding to start an agency
“Short answer - there was no other option. I kind of had my back against the
wall there for the last two years. So a bit of context, I was working in the UK
for an F1 (Formula One) contractor and, you know, things didn't go the way
that I was hoping for. It was a dream job of mine at the time; it ended sourly,
but that was completely fine. I was back in Canada, spent the next two years
looking for a job within motorsports or sports and couldn't find anything, so
I really had to kickstart my agency and start writing on LinkedIn a lot more;
I figured this is the best way to go about expanding my growth, working for
myself and expanding my network of people. So really, it started from a
place of desperation, if you could say, but it has worked out, so I'm going to
continue sticking with it.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
4. On getting interested in a sports business career
“I've been passionate about sports, started from motorsports — it's been a
part of my entire life [since I was] a kid. I've been around it forever and it's
been inseparable. So whether it was fast cars or automotive, I was always
around fast cars and people who had nice cars, so it was just the nature of
the space. And growing up in the Middle East as well, there was a level of
proximity to it that you can't just take me away from it. So when I moved
out to Canada, there was even more emphasis on that and making sure that
I was involved in that space somehow. I'm sure we'll discuss it down the
road of how that happened, but, really, it was starting out as a kid and
then, you know, it's bled into many other sectors of work.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
5. On similarities and differences across sports
“Each league and series is going to have their own differences, obviously, and
from what I've noticed through the perspective of motorsport is motorsport
always kind of lacked in terms of pushing the boundaries in marketing and
has always been that one step behind. When I compare that to the NBA or the
NFL, I look at them as leaders in the space and look at [them for] what's
going to be the next big thing that's going to happen, and looking at them as
forefronts of how do we push forward our narrative and how do we make
sure we maximize our revenue within the league? So naturally each league
and series is going to [be different] — some are going to be at the very top,
some are going to be very low, and each one has its own challenges. But the
one common denominator I always see is everyone's on this hamster wheel.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
6. You know, you have this in the corporate world and especially in the US,
and it's more prevalent in sports as everyone is on this level of hamster
wheel, like going back-to-back weekends, whether it's with the NBA, the
NFL or with motorsports, every person within the team is running on
fumes, essentially. So most of the time they're either overworked or they
have a lot going on. So a lot of those challenges stem from the nature of
just being so fast-paced.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
7. On the nature of motorsports fandom and the development of his own
fandom
“There's a lot of different leagues and series. When I explain that to
someone that doesn't know anything about it, and their assumption is to
always go to NASCAR, or at least before Drive to Survive that was the go-to
answer is, Oh, I know about NASCAR, I don't know about F1. And the more
you dig deeper into it, you know you have your top three IndyCar, Formula
One and Moto GP, but underneath that there's a lot more that people
haven't dug into. So yeah, under the umbrella there's a lot more.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
8. “My introduction as a fan was just going to the Bahrain Grand Prix as a kid
in 2004. My dad took me to that race and I have been hooked since then,
there was no taking me back away from it. I was hooked since that first
moment. Now new fans are coming through Drive to Survive, obviously
that's been a huge discourse ever since that TV series launched. I'm finding
more fans [from that show] rather than fans that grew up like like me
where they were just introduced to it by family members. But either way
works. There's no gatekeeping from my end of you should be this type of
fan, if you're not, you're not a fan if you haven't come through this way. So,
yeah all new fans are welcome.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
9. On the fan journeys of motorsports fan development
“Pre-Drive to Survive what (F1 fandom) kind of looked like, and I want to explain this
tangibly, was I would be in high school and I would have one corner of the table with me
and my one friend that talked about racing and F1, because we were the only two people in
our high school from all four [classes]; I mean, maybe there might have been more, but
there was only one person I spoke to about F1 that got it. Then transferring that to
university, I remember in 2015 being at a residence with some of my friends and we're just
taking a break, I was watching some F1 highlights from 2004, 2005, trying to reminisce on
these moments and everyone else would ask me, What the heck are you watching and why
are you watching this? It doesn't make any sense, and, you know, put your phone away. To
now those exact friends that have told me what are you watching are avid Ferrari fans or
Mercedes fans, and there's been a complete shift in their perspective on how they view fans,
how they view F1, how they view motorsports and they're going to races, they're actively
participating in the conversation, they know what's happening in the details of the drivers.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
10. “So tangibly, that's what it looks like, that shift from having that one friend
to me now speaking to every single person at the gas station; when I stop,
I'm wearing a Mercedes hat and they want to talk about F1 and that's what
it looks like, that's what it feels like in real life is you're being surrounded
by it all the time.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
11. On the shift in F1’s marketing and content when Liberty Media took over
“It happened very slowly because, from what I recall, Liberty Media came in in 2014…Even
pre-2014 and during Bernie [Ecclestone’s] era I there was a lot of restriction from the paddock
from what I was seeing because I wasn't involved at that stage as a professional is the level of
access people were getting. So, to be honest, there was a level of mystique around it. You know,
it's like, what is the secretive, exclusive thing? What's going on inside there? To a large extent,
obviously that worked. But as TV rights came in, as social media came in, that no longer applied
to that business model. So Liberty Media came in and saw NBA and the NFL are doing bits, why
don't we look at this amazing property, which was amazing at the time, but it lacked a lot of
access, it wasn't speaking the same language as the fans and, you know, who knows what would
have happened, hypothetically speaking, if Liberty hadn't come in and Bernie kept running the
show — would he have been phased out or would the sport have died? These are all
hypotheticals. But there was a level of access definitely for sure that wasn't permitted. And
perhaps that led all the way down to the fans that were watching the races and wanted to keep
up with it all the time…
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
12. “Even when Drive to Survive came out [the fan demographic shift] didn't
happen very quickly. There's a great creator named Toni Brown, and she's
spoken at length about this, and she mentioned that, you know, Drive to
Survive obviously came in and did its work and exposed a lot of that to new
fans, and the demographics changed from 50+ to a more younger fan base,
which is what it intended to do, but what really kickstarted a lot of this
content creation and testing out new formats was around 2020 when we
had free time essentially to do whatever we wanted to do, and we had time
to think. That gave a lot of content creators and new people who wanted to
binge that show the perfect opportunity to speak about a new topic that
they had no clue about, but they were interested in, and they went and
created new content around it on TikTok, Instagram, all these platforms.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
13. “So she's spoken about at length about this. And it was a number of
sequences of almost accidental events that happened, which has led us to
this stage. And now that F1 sees what the NBA and the NFL are doing, a lot
of that stuff is going to be then copied over and translated to what we can
do in motorsports. So the teams will look at it, the social media admins will
look at it and they're going to try and replicate something similar. So the
shift has happened across many years, it didn't happen instantly.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
14. On creating fans of teams alongside drivers
“That's an interesting question. Teams, for the most part, are, like I mentioned on this
cycle of going to race after race, and, when that translates over to content — there are
specific needs, obviously, from the teams and their sponsors that they need to adhere
to. So much of the objectives obviously, will be to make sure that the drivers are seen in
a positive light, and they're shown in a way where the fans can relate to them. But those
are one of many objectives that they're looking at. And to be honest, it's an easier task
because it's not like they have to go out and do that marketing on its own. Take, for
example, Ferrari doesn't need to go out and convince people to go buy it. People come
in and buy those cars because they want it. So in the same aspect, these drivers are seen
as superheroes and they're seen as likable personalities through their own social media,
and you don't have to put an amazing frame around these drivers because they're liked
and likable anyways, and they're going to get the following no matter what. It's the
team's job to accelerate that further.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
15. “And there are ways they're going about doing that. But those are all very
minor details to the overall bigger picture of what the team is trying to do.
Essentially they want to keep the sponsors happy and they want to
continue winning. They want to hopefully win races and get more money to
go and race.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
16. “Every driver will have a different level of in terms of the marketability, a
different level of difficulty. Obviously, if you have someone like Lewis, it's
going to be very easy to market him and people are just going to eat up
everything that he either speaks or talks about because he's bigger than the
sport and no matter what anyone says he's larger than the sport, to be honest.
He's transcended the sport and is basically mainstream in culture. You know,
your lowest-end driver is not going to have that same level of reputation.
People will know them, but they're more niche in the market. So, again one of
[the team’s] objectives obviously will be to amplify their drivers, but if you
look at the overall team picture, they want to go win races. And a lot of these
drivers tend to be either paid drivers or people or drivers that might not have
the same level of skill or marketability as them, so they might need to do a bit
more work. So it's different challenges for different situations.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
17. On driver performance vs. driver personalities in appealing to sponsors
“So team sponsorships and driver sponsorships are a bit different. So you have
someone like for example, Fernando Alonso who has, since joining TikTok, and
props to Aston Martin and their social media team on this because they do a very
good job of understanding who their audience is and catering to their needs. Their
content creator Jimmy is very good at understanding how to build Fernando
Alonso into this charismatic personality. So again, going back to it, it's different
challenges for different personalities and different drivers. And sponsors, I guess it
really depends on which sponsor you're talking about. You know, some of the
sponsors, like MSC Cruises or Rolex, will go and just do massive title partnerships
with F1. They don't see the value of perhaps going to a single individual driver.
And there's this conversation that kind of leads more into as well on who can
create the more depth with their audience versus just overall reach.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
18. “So yes, you know, Max, if you look at the example of Max and Daniel — Max
is someone that's winning races right now and all the eyeballs are basically
on him. So naturally every single sponsor would want to go to him and go,
Oh he's getting the most eyeballs, let's go to him and hopefully we can
generate more interest for our brand. But is it necessarily going to drive
more results to their brand and to their products and services? Maybe not
because he just cares about racing, whereas Daniel will truly understand,
even though he's not winning races, he still has a great level of reach, but he
can have a deeper level of impact because he has this ability to just charm
people through his social, through his ideas and the way he speaks to his
fans more clearly. So this goes back to what the sponsor is looking for and
whether they're looking for reach or they're looking for impact. So that's
really the question to ask more for the sponsors rather than for the drivers.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
19. On the staying power and avidity of fans attracted to the Drive to Survive-
inspired drama and storylines vs. the one that comes to love the sport itself
“So right off the bat, I’ll say there is no judgment as to where people find what
they enjoy and how they become fans. So whether you're a fan of the
engineering, you're a fan of the driver's personality or you came to Drive to
Survive, there's something about the sport that captivated you that made you
interested. For me, it was the natural raw speed of these machines and I was
like, Wow, this is amazing. Everyone comes in through their own ways, and
that's the beauty of it. If everyone came to just one channel everyone would just
talk about similar things. So it covers a lot of different sectors, that's the most
amazing part. And I always try and keep that open mind because there's many
different types of fans that want to enjoy the sport in many different ways.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
20. “The second point is Okay, now they're in. Let's just strip it back to the
basics. It's like we got the fans, how do we keep them over a longer period of
time? And this is where the problem I think arises in the marketing and in
the way the sponsors also handle this because now everyone is seeing this
amazing sport, and the sport has a lot of reach and level of success that every
single sponsor and everyone involved wants to capitalize on. But that's the
problem. They want to capitalize on it, not maintain it. So as soon as they got
the fan now all bets are off and goes Okay, we made as much money from
you as possible, it’s like ‘Bye’. That's what I want to really avoid is how can
we maintain and keep these fans over a longer period of time, because you
don't just become a fan by watching one thing, you become a fan over time,
seeing it multiple times, and then you start finding like-minded people.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
21. “So there needs to be better strategies and better systems in place to
nurture these fans over a longer period of time. These fans, if you talk
about demographics, are much younger now. The age of the fan base has
shifted from being 50+ to much lower, 18-35, so these fans are going to
grow up with this sport over a longer period of time. So how can we
maintain that so that as these fans grow up, they can pass down this
passion of theirs to their kids and to their peers? Because word of mouth at
the end of the day is the most powerful way of marketing and the best way
to sell something. So, you know, if we can figure out ways to keep these
fans and maintain these fans over a longer period of time, we can ensure
that we can continue to attract newer fans down the road.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
22. On fans of the show Drive to Survive vs. fans of the sport
“It's a weird way to go about this, but it's like you can't judge, again, on
where these fans come from. I mean, there's been a lot of situations, right?
It's like if you are a fan of the TV show and if you just want to be a fan of the
TV show, that's great…It becomes a bit of a different thing now because now
that everyone is watching the show, there's a level of interest there of ‘How
can I get involved and how can I use this as a way to leverage my own thing’,
just because this is the next hot topic and this is the next trending thing, so
I'm going to capitalize on it. And to be fair, every single there's going to be
moments like that across many different sports and many different topics,
you know, one thing is going to be trending, so people are going to capitalize
on that and that's natural.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
23. “I don't know if there's a real answer there because it's, again, I want to
come from a place of judgment and everyone comes from a different place,
and I'm in a very small bubble of people where, you know, we work in a
professionally, but at the same time we are, in a way, professional fans at
the same time. Like we we enjoy being in it and enjoy working in it. But at
the same time, we want to see our favorite drivers or watch the race and be
excited by it. So it's like, who's the real fan and who's not? I don't know
where you go from there.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
24. “I'm trying to think back to any personal examples that I have…You know,
I was a big fan of The Last Dance documentary, and I can't say I've watched
every single season after that. You know, I've kept up. I'm a Raptors fan,
naturally, because I'm in Toronto and sure, you might call me a bandwagon
fan because I watched the Raptors win [the title] in 2019, but am I justified
being a fan? Can I go to a game if I've only watched a couple seasons and
I've only watched a couple games?”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
25. “There's a lot of demographics. So that's the one thing…you know, a lot of
my work is focused on, like, how these new sport tech companies are
bridging that gap for sport organizations in Britain and bringing these
intersections of so many fan fanbases together and helping them
understand, you know this fan has this type of behavior or they have two
different interests, but it's all around this topic of F1 or motorsports. So
because the fan base is now so large, there are so many different levels of
interest and personalities and people that find certain things interesting
and certain things they don't find interesting. So it's it's a unique challenge,
that's for sure. And I'm sure you know the NBA and the NFL have the same
issues and they're all tackling the main issue there — how do we keep these
fans and track more fans down the road?”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
26. On the growth of ancillary engagement and opportunities as the F1 fan
base grows
“Motorsports for a large part of time and F1 have kind of lived in its own
little bubble for the most part. You know, they've operated in a very
exclusive circle and people couldn't necessarily go in if you didn't have the
right connections. And through a lot of the content and media and the the
show what it's done is basically democratize. Not to the full extent, but it's
just opened up the door a bit more. So, you know, before there were maybe
only 2 or 3 doors, now there's five doors to get into and new ways to enter
the sport, and it's made things a bit more easier. It's still difficult, but it's
easier.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
27. I encourage it to be honest. It’s why I think perhaps I've been able to also
act and kickstart my agency is, you know new people talking about it, new
people talking about the sport and interest around it has opened up their
eyes as to what other things are happening within the industry. You know,
sure, I might not be a driver, I might not be an engineer or a mechanic, but
how else can I be involved? And, you know, if there's if there's interest
around it, then there's a level of, okay, next, how can I make money out of
it and, and capitalize from this as much as possible?
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
28. “So I encourage that part because there's a level of innovation and, and
creativity that then comes that kind of [disrupts] the status quo and goes
we need to try and evolve and change this a bit more. Something tangible is
in IndyCar, for example. So there's a woman named Crystal Smith. She
used to work in entertainment in Disney and I don't know if she was a fan
before or after, but regardless, I think she just got hired by McLaren, the
team, and to come in and do their social media and I don't think that
would have happened pre-Bernie or pre-[Drive to Survive] as much
because there would be a level of you need to have experience within the
industry, or you need to be in Europe to be in this space. And I love seeing
that aspect of being able to adapt your skills from a different industry and
bring it into motorsport.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
29. And I love doing that even with my own work is to understand how can I
take things from music or creativity or, you know, these big music artists
and translate that to motorsport? And how can I apply that to my own
work? And that to me is interesting because if we continue doing the same
thing over and over again we're going to get the same results, and I prefer
being different rather than better.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
30. On innovation and evolution of the on-track experience and viewership and
keeping the sport accessible to average fans
“There's a lot of new companies that are emerging out of this, more in the
tech space. The stat I think probably applies to a lot of different companies
and sports and leagues is 99% of fans won't ever attend a race. I think that
that same stat can be applied to many different sports because a lot of people
either might not have the money or the capability to go to a lot of events. So,
you know, there's a lot of companies out there that are helping change that,
progressing forward and many are trying to enter that space. From that
standpoint, it's going to be interesting to see how that evolves and how you
can perhaps translate a live experience and bring that to somebody's home
rather than just having it on TV.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
31. “Going back to accessibility and just user experience of entering a live
event, you know, if I compare my experience going to an NBA game versus
going to an F1 race, those are two very different experiences. One, F1 is
across a whole week of events, the NBA I can just go in and out and there's
a level of ease of access that I just enjoy with that aspect of an NBA game.
With an F1 weekend, you have to spend the whole week. From the fan
experience side, I think that's interesting and how people are going to
bring that live event experience back to the home…
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
32. On pricing out most fans from attending F1 races
“Going back to how can you bring that live experience back home. You
know, some companies in terms of broadcasting are trying to help improve
that. So this isn't an official app or official company sponsored by F1 or
working with F1, but it's called Multiviewer. I think it's just a volunteer-run
company. But you can download that app and have multiple different views
of different camera angles and different drivers to see what's happening
across the track in little segment times and whatnot. So broadcast-wise, I
see companies evolving and bringing that experience to a wider
demographic of people. And if people want more detail on that, that's where
they go find it. So I see more companies like that emerging down the road.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
33. “It's interesting because it's going to be very dependent on how much
everyone wants to collaborate and where their interests really lie. Are they
interested in just ‘cash is king’ or are they really interested in nurturing
these fans over a long period of time? A lot of their decisions will be and
will be based on based on that.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
34. On how generative AI will affect copywriting
“We can't deny the existence of [generative AI platforms]. Full transparency, I use it
quite often. You have to understand how to give it the right prompts and prompt
engineering, as I'm sure many have said, and how to utilize it to your best capabilities.
It's sped up a lot of my processes that would take hours and hours to go create. I use it in
a way where I give it certain prompts to help me figure out frameworks or templatized
methods and processes where I have to go and repeat a lot of different things. So [when]
it's a lot of mundane tasks I'm like, okay, this can be done much more quickly if I use
this right prompt in this right way. For people who are wanting to apply it if you're just a
beginner, which I don't think many are, especially if you're in within the marketing
space or, it's how can you look at your like mundane tasks and things that you spend a
lot of time on, and how can you build frameworks or systems around that to speed up a
lot of those processes? Because it’s gonna be around, a lot more people are going to be
using it so I found it's better to get used to it now rather than later.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
35. You have the skill set of a talented, experienced motorsports competitor
and you get to drive in one race — what are you driving in and which
competition?
“I was looking at this question before, and I had two answers, And I'm
going to give you both because one, obviously it was so natural for me to
say F1. And I think that's an expected answer. F1, drive the W11, which was
Lewis Hamilton's car in I think 2021 or 2020. Just absolutely. [For track
selection] Portimão track [in Portugal]. It's very uphill and downhill, very
fast-flowing corners. I would love to drive that track in that specific car.
And that was the obvious answer.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
36. “But the non-obvious answer would be the Isle of Man TT race in Wales.
And be basically Guy Martin because I think those guys — I think there's
something loose in their head because I don't know how they do it. And if I
was able to say, you know, I'm not going to crash, which is quite rare in
that race and I can [drive this ride this bike around the Isle of Man TT
track and not crash I think that's a success on its own, no matter what the
time is. So I would love to say I've done that and conquered that.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
37. Is Max Verstappen’s dominance good for the sport, or is there a potential
risk of him decreasing tune-in for F1 races?
This is going to be a slightly diplomatic answer, because I think if people
know who I am, they know I'm a Lewis Hamilton fan and I'm not going to
shy away from that. But at the same time, Lewis also had his era of
dominance, and there was a level of people getting bored by his
domination as well; obviously not on my side because I'm being biased and
I'm sure now, you know, if Max fans are seeing him win, they're going to be
like, yes, amazing. I do see his dominance is probably a bit higher than
what Lewis was because you kind of just expect it at this point. And I don't
know if it's good or bad.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
38. I guess it leans more towards bad. Again, people are going to call me out on
my bias, but I think we've had this shift in different generations and
different eras of people dominating. A lot of people have put up interviews
with like, I'm getting bored of this, I'm not going to watch. It's going to ebb
and flow. We have new regulations coming in 2026, [so] hopefully things
close up by 2025 when people understand their cars a lot more. So I'm not
really answering your question, but I guess it leans more towards bad.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
39. The most important lesson Nirupam has learned so far throughout his
professional journey
“It's the act of specificity. So about this rule of one across everything I do
and I try and implement it every single day, is to focus on if my entire
agency was kicked off, the fact of being very specific and not being broad.
So the rule of one was around I'm solving a specific problem for one
specific person. So I look at one specific person, one problem and one
solution and that's it, and that has accelerated a lot of my growth to, one,
stand out, and to be very clear to people on what I do. There's no confusion
on that aspect. And that's what has kickstarted a lot of my work.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
40. What should we know about Wilfrid Laurier University?
“Well, I think it's pretty commonly known about its reputation as a party
school or party university. And if anyone's come out there during Saint
Patty's Day, you definitely know of the street Ezra Avenue, that gets filled
up very quickly. I don't know if it's the same as when I used to go, but it's
definitely known as that place of Ezra Avenue.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
41. Niru’s number one tip for someone who's looking to enhance their
presence on LinkedIn
“It goes back to that same approach when of that important lesson [of] the
rule of one. There's a lot of generalists. I found I was able to stand out
because I was able to be very specific with who I target and who I help. And
because of that reason, more people know me, know me for this for that in
that space of Okay, he does email marketing within motorsport.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
42. The most memorable race Nirupam has been at in real life and most
memorable he’s watched
“The most memorable race I watched on TV was Abu Dhabi 2021, and I
think I've just sent shrieks down people's spines and tingles down people's
spines because everyone knows what that race was, especially if they know
I'm a Lewis Hamilton fan. So that race was definitely memorable. The
[best] live race I've watched was Bahrain 2004. I mean, my very first
experience watching that race; you can't replicate the V10 race with V10
engines and watching Michael Schumacher go past. I mean, that's going to
stick with you forever. So that's definitely memorable.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
43. The F1 athlete or team with the best content and why
“I would say Aston Martin. I've mentioned them already. A Jimmy's Life
(@ajimmyslife) on Instagram and TikTok — he does all their stuff for
Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso, and you can see through their TikTok
partnership that Fernando just gets it and Jimmy gets it as well. They do
things differently.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
44. The best meal to get in Toronto and where
to get it
“We are going to Seoul Shakers. It's a
Mexican and Korean fusion spot on Bloor
Street and it's fantastic. And the music is
even better…They have a set menu all the
time...There's a small cheese melt thing
that they have. I'm forgetting the name,
but their entire menu is great, and they
have I think, 6 or 7 items on the menu,
everything's great on there.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
45. Who is the GOAT F1 driver?
“Max Verstappen. No, I'm kidding. I mean I'm going to say Lewis
Hamilton, it's very obvious. But you said the second [behind Lewis] — I
don't like when people say an answer like Ayrton Senna, especially if they
haven't grown up watching him race, but I'm sure he was a GOAT and he's
fantastic. I can't give you a second…There's only one.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
46. Niru’s Social Media All-Star to Follow
“I wish I could emulate a percent of his humor and his charisma is a guy
named Karl Shakur (@karl_shakur) on Instagram. He's just a breath of
fresh air on the app and just someone who I can see I would just get along
with and I would be friends with, even if we didn't talk about Instagram
and whatnot. He just emulates a great type of energy.”
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
47. Where to find Niru and his business on digital/social media
Niru is most active on LinkedIn – Nirupam Singh. Also subscribe to his
newsletter Motorsport A&R (current and future trends of motorsport,
weekly) and hire him for email marketing and ghostwriting for tech
companies and motorsport brands
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh
48. @njh287; www.dsmsports.net
Thanks again to Nirupam 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.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 270: Nirupam Singh