Former NBA point guard Chris Paul, who spent 21 years in the league, launched Ohh Dip!!! Entertainment last year with backing from Connor Schell’s Words + Pictures, and the production companies will be incorporating Genius Sports’ data and technology into their latest venture.
Per Sports Business Journal, Genius will provide official NBA data and visualization tech for a digitally native program of 30-to-45 minutes hosted by Paul that’ll take the audience into the depths of NBA strategy. During his time at ESPN, Schell worked on Detail, which featured the late Kobe Bryant’s in-depth film analysis of NBA stars, and that experience has been an inspiration for his new venture with Paul, according to Words + Pictures’ COO and chief business officer Nickole Tara.
“Certainly there’s going to be all kinds of culturally relevant talking points that come up through this,” Tara added. “This isn’t intended to just be a stats show. There are good resources for that already, but it’s the color behind the data. It’s giving you really creative avenues for understanding why certain things happen or why propensities work out that way and matching up the stats with the real human who’s lived those statistical anomalies and what makes them special.”
Chris Paul used Genius’ data during his playing career and has a relationship with the company stretching back to his early investment in Second Spectrum, which provided the NBA’s official tracking data through the 2022-23 season and was later acquired by Genius. Genius Sports will retain the right to commercialize the content, acting as the sales arm for the media brand, which will be distributed primarily through Paul’s social channels.
“By Genius controlling the production element, we can control how the data is used, how we create new sponsorable assets within the programming that’s very different to what any sort of traditional sports podcast or talking head show has had before,” Genius CRO Josh Linforth said.
Genius is the official data provider for several sports and leagues, including the NFL, Premier League and NCAA. The plan is for Paul’s game plan and strategy breakdown series to be the first in a project that will eventually span multiple sports.
“The ambition here is that we’re going to build a network of shows that talk about the data behind the sport, and the NBA and basketball is the first one of that series,” Tara said. “And so we’re going to get the model right, we’re going to get the format right, and then we have big ambition with Genius about the NFL and EPL and all kinds of emerging sports that we think are under-covered from a sport education perspective.”
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.