Ameeth Sankaran Of Religion of Sports: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO

Being willing to take ownership and accountability to make yourself and your company great — thinking beyond the current role and taking the mindset of the company.

As a part of our series called ‘Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO’ we had the pleasure of interviewing Ameeth Sankaran.

Ameeth Sankaran is CEO of Religion of Sports, an Emmy Award winning Media company co-founded by Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Gotham Chopra, built on the thesis that sports are religion. The company produces content focused on a single narrative of ‘Why Sports Matter’ to explore themes such as greatness and human potential, among others.

Since 2017, the company has produced content across mediums, from short-form video to audio to feature films and has won multiple awards including a Sports Emmy. Ameeth is an Executive Producer of Tom vs. Time, Greatness Code, Stephen vs. the Game, Man in the Arena, and the Crushed podcast among others.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

It was not a straightforward path but the “why” part was always clear — I’m a massive sports fan, I care about making an impact on the world and love working with my co-founders and team. I’ve always thrived when building and being a central part of nurturing and growing entities and both setting up for and executing successfully.

The “backstory” is a lot less clear. I started a software company out of college before going to business school and then spending nearly a decade in strategy consulting at BCG. I then joined an investment firm acquiring and operating smaller businesses across many industries. I ended up reconnecting with filmmaker and friend, Gotham Chopra, and my curiosity and intrigue drove me towards brainstorming with him and our team to lay out a vision. We charted out a path for how Religion of Sports could be much more than a TV show, much more than a production company — a Media company and over time, an actual “Religion”.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

COVID drove a reset around many dimensions of the company and culture. Not only did it effect how we produce content, but also how it is edited, what stories we tell and how we engage with our partners. We were forced to take a step back and make some significant changes, one of which included growing our team to triple the number of employees. It required us to build a “virtual culture” — something that is ever-present and can always tackle any need at any given time.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

We have made so many mistakes but they great thing about them is they all teach a lesson we can learn from. I thought early on that because we had the big names like Tom Brady and Michael Strahan as co-founders and the opportunity was so clear to me, that many others would see things the same way and recruiting and partnerships would be simple. Turns out, you need to actually show people what the business entails and prove its worth before you can get them excited and on board. Early on, I assumed I had landed a big partnership based solely on our credibility… it turned out they were waiting for a $2MM check to come from us with it!

Now, almost 4 years later, we have built quite a bit and are very thoughtful about what we want to partner on and how it connects to our longer-term strategy. We have launched and are launching events and partnerships that help elevate our brand and mission — and in ways that are revenue accretive as well.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’ve been lucky enough to have many mentors in my life. From my parents to teachers and former bosses / colleagues and friends. My former boss, Mort Meyerson, was instrumental in supporting a mindset of taking (thoughtful) risk. His ethos is “structured serendipity” — always keep your eyes/ears open as you never know what you might miss. However, he always emphasized the importance of having an end goal in mind. He used the quote from Alice in Wonderland quite a bit — “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

As you know, the United States is currently facing a very important self-reckoning about race, diversity, equality and inclusion. This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have a diverse executive team?

Diverse perspectives are critical to coming at a business problem thoughtfully and finding a real way to attack it. Similar thoughts don’t help — especially for tough problems that require nuance in our complex world. Making this tangible, our head of People and I instituted a new process to integrate voices across the company across all levels and, to hear from underrepresented parts of the business.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?

• Inspire: Care about your teammates and partners while showing them
• Model: Model or act out what you are asking to be done so you can ensure employees have clear direction
• Listen: Give people the opportunity to share feedback and truly listen to what they have to say

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive. Can you explain what you mean?

Many people think that running a sports media company means spending time with celebrities or watching sports is all I do. While some of those things occur, 90% is grinding, building a business and thinking about everything from strategy to operations and putting out fires in the process. If you aren’t excited about the grind and work it takes to make something great, then any industry will not be interesting.

What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?

Similar to the above, it’s easy to go into a roll at the top where you assume everyone below you will be doing the work and you just have to give direction. As it turns out, it’s just as crucial for the CEO to be as involved in the day-to-day tasks as it is for any employee to ensure the vision is being carried out correctly. If you aren’t involved as a CEO, the vision will quickly become that of the people putting in the work.

Do you think everyone is cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?

• Being willing to take ownership and accountability to make yourself and your company great — thinking beyond the current role and taking the mindset of the company.
• Being a team player — thinking about what it takes to elevate the group.
• Ruthlessly prioritizing — being able to continue to adjust what you are doing in context of what will make the greatest impact.
• Communicating clearly and collaboratively — long-term relationship orientation with clarity when conflict arises / ability to manage it.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help create a fantastic work culture? Can you share a story or an example?

Acting as a team player and creating an open forum for all voices to be heard is key to a healthy work culture. If employees are feeling stifled, or like their opinions don’t matter, not only will they be unhappy and have the potential to leave, but the quality of work will suffer with it.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Religion of Sports has contributed directly through content. One of the most gratifying and powerful developments was a woman reaching out to us and telling us her 13 year old boy did not commit suicide because he saw himself in the content we produced, and was inspired to change like the character in the film did (Rezball episode of Religion of Sports). We have received countless amounts of feedback from people all over who are inspired by various pieces of content based on the stories we tell.

We also inspire to do more through wellness. My personal passion is allowing others to see greatness in themselves by utilizing mental/emotional tools developed by those who perform at their best.

Fantastic. Here is the primary question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1) “Climb the highest mountain” — the life lesson here is there is massive potential to stop climbing the mountain you are on if you see something else where there is more potential. It is easy (and has happened to me) to get consumed by a current job or career path and keep blinders on. Only when ACTIVELY looking and thinking big do new things emerge. My old boss used to call it “structured serendipity” — be focused, but always open to new ideas and concepts.

2) Failure truly creates growth — thinking and planning is great but doing creates momentum and failing drives learning. I once planned for weeks to try to make an acquihire — I built out the pros/cons, ran analysis and focused on building a financial model. If I had listened to the company owner, there were many signs that he was using my overtures to leverage into a different deal. From then on, I know every partnership or deal is 90% relationship, and 10% business logic (as long as it makes sense). I could give a thousand examples here.

3) Following your passion is great… but it needs to intersect with a need you deliver to the world. I love sports (as does Gotham and our full team). But our lane in the world is inspirational content and that’s what we give back to the world.

4) Exercise, Nutrition, Mental Focus, Recovery and Relationships are all critical to being a “Peak Human.” Every element requires focus and attention. Being “ok” on all can work but being “great” on some and a “disaster” at others throws everything off balance. We see this even at the most elite level. I wish I knew early so I could prioritize in my 20s the importance of holistic living.

5) Compound your life. Tom Brady talks about how each step doesn’t “feel” like much progress, but at the end of 20 years, there is massive progress. Similar theme in “Atomic Habits” — the ability to improve in a disproportionate way if you improve 1% each day. As I incorporated habits in my life (meditation, exercise, reading as examples) I started to see changes — not immediately by any stretch, but over time. And that change created personal/professional growth in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Going back to my thoughts around the importance of holistic living, I’d like to create a movement in which people are empowered and given the tools and resources to prioritize their overall health. It can be so easy to get caught up in the daily the hustle that we forget to prioritize the health of the mind and body that is allowing us to get through the hustle in the first place.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Get one percent better every day”

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Mark Andreesen given how far ahead of absolutely every trend he has been for so many years and how many random businesses and connections he is able to extrapolate trends around.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.