For my Interview I decided to interview Eddie Farrer, aka @EddieBarstool, a blogger for Barstool Sports and Barstool Chicago. Eddie's job is not limited to blogging as he is involved with many podcasts at Barstool like Red Line Radio, host of The Dog Walk, and co-host of the Dave Portnoy Show w/ Eddie & Co. He is part of the Barstool Chicago branch of Barstool Sports, focusing on things in and around Chicago, Illinois. Prior to his time with Barstool he was head videographer in college for the Southern Illinois Saluki's football team, an intern with the Howard Stern show, and a Production Assistant with Stadium (a multi-platform sports entertainment network). Eddie currently has 22k followers on Instagram and 76k followers on Twitter. I reached out to Eddie through DM's on twitter and was lucky enough for him to reply to me. Prior to my request for an interview, I've had a few interactions with him and other members of Barstool Chicago on twitter through DM's as well as on the twitter timeline.
Barstool Chicago only has six total people working in their branch. Four of them being the main content guys, Eddie, Barstool Carl, Chief, and White Sox Dave. The other two are behind the scenes guys working in production and advertising for Barstool Chicago. A typical day for Eddie is consistently heavy with Podcasts, as I mentioned, he hosts the Dog Walk and is co-host of Red Line Radio and The Dave Portnoy Show. When there is a big sporting event they may have a live stream to show their reaction to the event taking place, for example last week their office was together to watch the first round of the NFL draft where the Chicago Bears drafted highly touted quarterback Justin Fields.
When I asked the best part and worst part of the job he has, Eddie said the best part easily was the creative freedom he gets with Barstool. He can't argue that there are many other places where people get the freedom they do to create content. The worst part of the job was that he's "always on-call" and at the drop of a hat he has to be there if big news regarding any of his teams drops.
Barstool's main demographic is males 18-34, but Eddie claims the voice of his audience is much greater and diverse than that. His podcast, the Dog Walk, is known for being a short 15-20 minute podcast (the time it would take to walk your dog) that interviews and talks about a wide variety of topics unrelated to sports. They do "True Crime Friday's" where they talk about wild crimes that have taken place through history, interview everyday blue-collar people of Chicago like plumbers, former Wrigley Field concession workers, and even a gym teachers from a high school on the South Side of Chicago. Due to the variety of topics they talk about on the Dog Walk he has people from all walks of life outside of their main demographic.
The Barstool Chicago team is involved with many different ads that can be heard on their podcasts and seen on the teams main instagram page. When I asked how the ads come to be, Eddie says they have an advertising scene that sells advertisement space for them, and do the commercial space for them.
To close the interview I asked where he see's the Barstool Chicago team going over the next five years. He sees the Chicago team continuing to grow and eventually competing with Barstool's main offices in New York. Creating competition amongst each other to help one another grow overall. I also asked for some advice for someone looking to get into the profession of Social Media. Eddie said it's important to "be different from the current media myron" and find what makes you different from the rest of the industry. Once you figure that difference out focus on that because that "little difference can make the world" for you in this profession.
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