Jimmy ‘Jomboy’ O’Brien talks ‘Warehouse Games’: ‘It’s going to have a really big ceiling’

Since the 2017 founding of the Talkin’ Yanks podcast by Jimmy “Jomboy” O’Brien (with Jake Storiale joining a few episodes in), Jomboy Media has been through incredible growth.

They’ve raised millions in funding from big-name investors, including Dwyane Wade, Karl-Anthony Towns, and C.C. Sabathia, have brought in notable figures including Chris Rose, Peter Moylan, and more, and have launched extensive lineups of shows covering baseball, other sports, and more.

But one of the most unusual things Jomboy Media has done is create their own Warehouse Games shows. Those feature Jomboy Media figures competing in sports including ball in play, floorball, blitzball, and slapball. The “Blitzball Battle 5” version of these games premieres Monday night at 7:30 p.m. ET (with further games following Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays at that time).

“Blitzball Battle 5” can be seen both on the Warehouse Games YouTube channel and on various FanDuel Sports Network channels (the former Bally Sports regional sports networks) thanks to a distribution deal struck this summer. (Whether it’s live on any particular RSN depends on that RSN’s schedule, but some are showing it live.) O’Brien spoke to AA about these contests and the Warehouse Games in general and said this particular series is of interest to both the top and bottom teams.

“It’s kind of the culmination of the season. We had a full year-long season, so there’s a lot on the line as far as who can win. And also, there’s three teams up for getting skunked, zero points throughout the course of the year, and those teams will have a skunk badge on their jerseys next year. It’s tough to say that, because my team is up for that.”

O’Brien said Blitzball Battle 5 shows off how far these games have come.

“We’ve really found our footing as far as the production side of things, and what we want it to be, and what we want it to keep growing into. And the blitzball battles are always a little more of a main event; obviously we have a baseball audience, and they’re the original tournament that we’ve done, so they have a little more emphasis to them. And it’s always fun when we have [Chris] Rose, [Peter] Moylan, and the full crew together.”

It’s Blitzball Battle 5 time!!! See you tonight at 730 in the chat. @JMWarehouse_ YouTube channel. pic.twitter.com/gHeVpiK3AR

— Chris Rose (@ChrisRose) November 4, 2024

O’Brien said Jomboy Media has used their funding to majorly boost that production side since they started these games, which has led to a much more professional-looking product.

“It’s just been such a big operation of learning and making changes and adjusting. And if you go through the timeline from the first tournament, which was one-on-one, to the second, just upgrading cameras and upgrading how many manned cameras we have. The first one was on GoPros and Handicams and we recorded to MicroSDs.

“Now, we have a truck, so to speak; it’s a room. But we have a crew of camera operators, sound engineers, graphics, replay, director, switcher. And it’s a 16-camera production with replays, a producer on the floor making sure the ad reads get done. So it’s really just as far as DIY can go for a big production with a company.

“We let people come in, we let them listen to the headset, and they’re like ‘This sounds the same as an ESPN crew.’ And that’s always fun to hear because we’ve really just done it all on our own, growing, and changing, and learning. So there’s that, and then there’s always making sure we bring the personalities into play and the drama into play. It’s as much a reality show as it is a sport.”

O’Brien said these games came out of fun side videos they were doing outside their main office, and out of the popular reaction to those.

“Well, we started out with just a little side video series that we were doing where we were playing in the alley at our Bronx office. Those were getting crazy views, doing really well. We got kicked out of the alley, but thought ‘People seem to like this, we like it.’ So we got a warehouse.”

O’Brien said even at that point, he didn’t necessarily think these games would get to the point they have, though.

“The big vision wasn’t fully there when we first got the warehouse. And then I was on paternity leave, so  I happened to have a lot of time to think, so I just thought myself into this bigger and bigger picture where there really is no ceiling, because we can take it wherever we want.

…”I kept walking around and saying things like ‘Spikeball is on ESPN, Slamball, a made-up, brand-new sport is on TBS, why can’t we make up sports and turn it into television?’ And it’s more of just a challenge to myself and ourselves. With the way we film and edit it, I always have more of a TV production in mind than YouTube, where you have the jump cuts and all the editing stuff.

“We’ve always wanted it to be polished, and it is, and there’s an audience that really loves it. And part of that is making sure that we love it as well. We love playing it, we love making it, the editing, the whole crew gets, I think, such a kick of it. We’re glad that it’s grown and that it’s got life and now it’s got distribution nationally.”

O’Brien said a big part of what allowed this to succeed was the Jomboy audience’s willingness to watch outside-the-box experiments.

“Whenever I start new ideas like that, I know we have a core community that allows us to try things, that gives us the room to create and grow. And they don’t just say ‘No’ right away. That allows us to do a lot of fun stuff. If we enjoy it and we make it quality, that audience allows us to give it some legs, and maybe it will catch on. And it took a bit.”

O’Brien said he wasn’t even sure this would work, but he thought it was worth trying given the potential if it did catch on.

“I don’t know why I thought people would tune in, or if I even did. I just thought ‘If they do tune in, this is going to be really fun, and it’s going to have a really big ceiling. We own all the IP, and we can build characters and storylines and basically produce television.’ I’m not sure I was positive it would have an audience, but I was pretty sure if we could get an audience, it would be a ton of fun.”

Speaking of that audience, it’s grown further since that linear distribution deal on the RSNs. O’Brien said while there’s a lot of discussion of the struggles of the cable model, especially with RSNs, it still has value for reaching people who don’t typically consume a lot of YouTube content.

“There’s still a lot of people. There are people my age and younger and your age that are like ‘No one watches cable,’ but the truth is, the majority of the world is 40 years old or older. The numbers there, 40-80, it’s just a lot of people. …And there is a huge audience out there that watches linear TV that does not watch YouTube regularly. And that allows us to tap into that. ”

He said Jomboy Media has a focus on trying to appeal across demographics, and this fits into that.

“We always try to make our content cross-generational. Something I always tell all of my creators in our company is ‘We want to make content that a teenager would say ‘Hey, Dad, check this out,’ or that a 40-year-old would say to his son or daughter, ‘Hey, I think you’d like this.’ We want it to be entertaining to anyone.’

O’Brien said the distribution deal also gives them more money to keep putting back into boosting the Warehouse Games.

“It allows to keep doubling down on the investment, because there’s now money coming in in different ways to continue to grow it and build it.”

O’Brien said he appreciates living in an era where it’s possible to just make content and distribute it on streaming, then get it picked up linearly, rather than going through a traditional pitch process.

“There’s also just the procedure of selling your own distribution. I watched the American Gladiators documentary on Netflix, and our story isn’t that dissimilar to theirs. But when they were starting, they had to pitch a concept, get backing to film the first season, and then take that first season and sell it and hope it gets distributed for the future.

“But what YouTube allows you to do, and having an audience and having a company where we have got investment to try new things, we were able to make this on spec, so to speak. We didn’t really have to have anyone believe in it besides us. If I had shopped this around, I think people would have said ‘What? I don’t know…’ But we were able to go ahead and prove that there’s an audience.”

O’Brien said the Warehouse Games, in particular, stands out because it has the production and appeal of live sports programming even if it’s airing on delay (which it sometimes has done as replacement RSN programming when there’s a weather delay).

“There’s not many people that have started on YouTube, although there’s some that have, and then sold distribution to linear. But because the nature of it is seasons and sports, it plays like live programming. Obviously, there are people that have done that, we’re not the first, but it’s a very small percentage.

“And we’re really, really proud that the product stands up. The television crews and cameras are high-quality, the audience, there’s just so much that goes into it. And now people will send screenshots of them watching it [on linear], like ‘Tigers’ game was rained out, but now I’m watching these guys playing blitzball.'”

The Warehouse Games is an interesting part of Jomboy Media’s story to date. But O’Brien said he also sees them as an important part of the company’s future, and part that’s less reliant on professional sports leagues and their seasonal cycles.

“It’s a big slice of the pie. We have content covering other sports, obviously, and that’s the bread-and-butter, that’s where we started, covering baseball, covering football, and finding those communities. But the ceiling of that, you are very dependent on the other leagues and the other teams.

“Having original content that we own where we can sell distribution, it’s huge. So as far as the company looks at it, it’s something where we’re going to keep investing and keep growing, because the more that we can build out original content and find success with original content, the higher the ceiling gets.”

[The Warehouse Games on YouTube]