Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, it's Steve Vindig at Sport Law.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Leave me a message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: Hey, Steve, it's Dina. You aren't going to believe what just came across my desk. We need to chat. Give me a call.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of Sportopia. We're so excited to share our knowledge and have conversations about healthy human sport today.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: We're so pleased to have Ed Blomley join us. He's been working in the production industry for decades and has a passion for sport. Currently, Ed is the adjunct professor and coordinator of Sport Business Management at Algonquin College, and he's been a fan of our podcasts and since day one. And he's going to be using it in his classroom. Can you believe that, Steve?
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Well, obviously very cool, but maybe as also a bit of torture, as you've alluded to, sometimes if you listen to it at 1.5 speed, it. It goes by quicker.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: And you'll love this. So I always like to listen to our podcast because I think it keeps us humble. And I was telling Steve, you know, I listened to it at 1.5, so it's a. It's a really nice way for us to kind of stay humble and also learn a few things along the way. So, Steve, before we dive into the conversation, what's coming across your desk?
[00:01:40] Speaker A: A little bit of everything. As you know, Dina, and all our listeners know, I've been spending a lot of time on governance and bylaws and articles and dealing with the ministry on filings because of the ONCA compliance requirements. And now that it's being December, I'm really happy to be doing a few different things now with contract reviews back into a little bit of complaint management, looking at policies, getting reacquainted with privacy. It's something that I was able to launch my career on back in 2004. So it is nice just to be doing a little bit, some things differently than bylaws pretty much 100% of the time. So a variety. I like variety, and I'm starting to get back some of that variety. What's new with you, Dina?
[00:02:30] Speaker C: I love it, Steve. Variety is the spice of life. What's new with me? Well, a couple of things, but I think the one that I'll speak to today is I've been really. I've been connecting with some of the leaders that we supported and hung out with during the Hope on the Horizon tour, and they're calling me now to talk about what are some of the proactive ways that we can invest in the leadership capacity of their PSOs, their TSOs.
And that's been a really wonderful conversation. So, for instance, as you know, we launched the Sport Leaders retreat back in 2017, which was a experiential, deep dive, intensive boot camp for leaders to help them better understand, you know, how they make meaning, their values, what their leadership, dominant leadership style is. Are they more extroverted, introverted, task focused, relational, and helping them understand their communication preferences. So it's been really exciting because now we're getting more leaders who are coming to us and saying, hey, can we do this for our psos? Hey, can we do this for our coaches? Hey, can we do this with our athletes? So we help to mitigate risk, but not only that, avoid burnout. Because so many of our clients, as you know, Steve, come to us usually because life is going sideways, there's a crisis, and what we want to see, and we've been encouraging towards, you know, this reclamation of how sport, how good sport can be is to. We have to invest in people and we have to invest in their capacity. So I'm excited about some of what our clients are asking of us. And it's way more fun, know, putting out fires.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: No doubt about that.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: So, Ed, we understand that you're a fan of the podcast.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: I am a fan of the podcast. I'm a fan of your firm. This has been. Thank you for having me on. This has been a long, a long process. I've known you now for a while. We've been using your podcast, the Sportopia podcast, in our legal and ethical issues course. And I personally, I love law anyways, and I love contract law and all these types of things, so it really, really fits. But with the students in the program, we tried to get them to have a broader vision. So we wanted to develop the course. And if you remember, Dean, it was. I can't remember. I think it was Andrea Guzzo kind of connected us. And we got to know your program, got to know your podcast. So all of a sudden I realized, okay, we actually have a brand new way of looking at law, looking at sport law.
And it fit the title legal and ethical issues in sport. So listening to your podcast has been amazing, and it's great for the students because you got to remember, the students come at this. I've got years and years of, of contract law and experience, blah, blah, blah. They have none. So what you guys bring in is a very comfortable process that makes sense to all new people listening. And the idea, you Cover governance, you cover the human factors, you, you cover. And they all have an impact on legalities. Right? They all, all the legal processes of sport. So anyway, this is great. You asked the question what's coming across my desk. It's a one year program. We start in the, in September. Field placement and internships is a big thing. So we right now have all of the fall nsos and sport groups approaching us looking to get students to come on board to help out. And that's. So that's got me very busy. And we just finished a, a great session at, at the House of Sport, which is at the RA center. And we had Jennifer Larson from Boccia, we had Ian Fraser, who's the CEO right now and he was the CEO of Run Ottawa.
Then the executive director of Badminton Canada, Brian Merritt, and then, oh, and Taylor Matthews who used to be a student who's now just a rock star in the industry and she works, I don't know if she still works for you because she's over.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: No, no. But we adore Taylor. She is a rock star and, and she helped us launch the podcast. So it's so fitting that you know she was a star student of yours. She's a bright star. She's doing some great things now with circ, the Sport Information Resource Center. So sounds like some of some of our favorite people you had a chance to connect with during at the House's board. And what a wonderful opportunity, Steve, to kind of boots on the ground. Give, give these young minds and these people who are kind of jazzed up about sport a taste of what it must be like to, to work inside the industry.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: I've had the ability, Ed, to lecture at multiple colleges and universities over the last 20 years. And a lot of the conversation sometimes, of course, it's far more interesting to talk about professional sports than amateur sports. So I'm curious to know, what are you seeing from the interest of your students?
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Well, again, when they show up, first of all, we're post grad, so all these students already have degrees in a range of things from commerce to psychology to, you know, law even, believe it or not. And they'll come because the folks that have law are really keen on becoming agents in the industry. And anyway, we get it, get to see them and they start to ask us questions. But at the very beginning they're really, they really are an open canvas because they come in with their preconceived thoughts based on they watch NHL hockey or they watch the Olympics just, you know, this summer. Right. And they have their preconceived thoughts and what we do is we bring them through a very long process because it is a full year program and we start off level one, level two, level three. So you're, you're, the legal course is in level three. So the whole idea is they've got a grounding, they kind of know what's going on. So when we start to talk about law and talk about nsos, and the thing that's kind of cool about our program is that we, we're in Ottawa. So our, we, we have access to the majority of the Canadian nsos. And I know the, that's a big part of business for you guys. So I, I, it really, really married up nicely. And so as I started following your group, your company, instead of following you guys and Dean, I certainly follow you. Steve, like you were saying in our pr, our conversation previous to this, you're not really on out there in social media on purpose.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: This doesn't reiterate with me, doesn't. It's not the first thing I think about.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: So anyways, you guys really touch on a lot of the things that our program is about. We almost all the way through, all our faculty are all part time. We have a couple of full time guys, but they also have backgrounds in sport and so and business ownership and stuff like that. So when we talk to the students, we spent a lot of time kind of giving them where the rubber hits the road. And so in my world, contract law, governance always is a rubber hits the road thing, regardless of what sport or brand you're dealing with. And so it's really critical what you guys bring to the table. I think in the NSO world, people as, as you sort of alluded to, Steve, everybody watches tv, everybody watches the sense, everyone watches the red blocks, but not everybody, only people. People only tune in to, you know, rock climbing, let's say, because it's in the Olympics. But we actually last year had a student internship with the brand new nso and it was a wonderful experience for me to guide the student through the process of realizing what here's what an NSO is, here's, here's the learning curve for them because they're brand new in the industry and brand new in the Olympics and then kind of guide them along.
It's very satisfying for me anyway.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: And a lot of our listeners would know this, that Dena makes me do the podcast and it was her idea and it's been very successful and fun. So when we created this or when she created this and made me do it. Of course, we never had the vision that somebody like you would be implementing this. Our short conversations into your educational program. How are you doing it? How is it working? How do the kids engage with it?
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Okay, I'll give you the nuts and bolts of it, right? So this is a third, third level course. So the kids have experience, they've been out there working with the nsos and, you know, the sens and all that stuff. So they have a sense of what, what goes on in the real world of sport business. So when we get to our legal and ethical issues course, I wanted it to be not a, A law course because we're not, we're not in that business. You guys are, but we're not. And I want them to understand in a weird way, kind of what I've seen and experienced is how people at all levels. So you guys in your podcast talk about grassroots stuff and how a local club with volunteers has to have governance and has to figure out their planning. So what we do with the students is I make them listen to a selected podcast and it's based on kind of what I want the lecture to, to guide to. So we, of course we have a, what's called a CSI weekly schedule that we present to the students and the. In the school before the course begins. And it walks Everybody through the 15 weeks. So peppered in the 15 weeks, I end up doing about eight podcasts. And after listening to the first few, which were great because they were your introduction to the process, but it really helped with students who need to be first introduced to the process, they can't just jump into a major detailed governance discussion in like, let's say your episode 28. It. It's something they need at the beginning. So we dialed it backwards and said, let's look at the first four and do they work? And then we tailored the lectures around your podcast.
So it was critical. It. No, it wasn't critical. It just was a critical marriage. It worked really well because what we talked about in the course, and I think I mentioned to you earlier as well, we. I always have an attendance question at the beginning of my classes, which forces them to answer a question that kind of opens up their minds and opens up their thought processes and it also allows me to kind of know where their heads are. So it could be a question about, let's say, you know, governance and. Or it could be a question about grassroots sport because we have a lot of people come in throughout the year, a lot of subject matter, Experts, executive directors, CEOs managers from everything from the Ottawa Senators all the way down to West Ottawa. Soccer is a really well run local grassroots organization and we love hearing those guys come in because it is really grassroots. Well, guess what? Both of those organizations have boards, both of those organizations have governance. They all have to jump the same hoops. They're just different levels and, and you know, a lot more money probably on anything the sense are going to do. Right?
[00:14:22] Speaker C: Yeah, we're really. We appreciate you saying that. That you know, for the vast majority of people listening, it's shocking when we say there's 34, 0, 34,000 sport organizations plus or minus on any given day. And many of those organizations started out as kind of mom and pop shops right at the beginning and now we have this. A couple of people in sport might describe it as a spaghetti mess on the wall and trying to trace who's related to who from a national level down to a provincial territorial down to a community sport experience and what's the ethos and ethics and rationale for how we are structured in today's world. So a lot of the work that we do is not blaming, you know, the 20, 30 years ago of how that was structured because it was fit for purpose in the 70s when more modern day Canadian sport was designed. But today we've just inherited a lot of these ways of being. That's culture, right? It's the rituals and practices and values and policies. And we don't often ask ourselves, well, in today's world, does it meet the legal standard? Does it make sense for us to be organized in this way? So that's what we're seeing a lot of is this tension between the inherited practices and rules of the pool and what might make sense today. And it's like un. It's sticky because a lot of those things are invisible, right? You, you don't really know until you go into the bylaws. And Steve has horror stories of, you know, trying to find insurance papers dating back 30 years or bylaws that are, you know, that you have to blow the dust off and people are like really? Why? Why are we doing it this way? Which is the best question to ask. Hey, Steve, the director, I gotta, I.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Got a set of bylaws this morning, Dina, and they were type written and scanned. So when I see that, my inclination is to recommend likely a new update or a new draft on a word format.
[00:16:28] Speaker C: Right. And what's exciting for us, Ed, and your students, I'm sure, are appreciating it and we really shouldn't call them kids, even though, you know, we're of a certain age here, because some of them might be late 20s and 30s. So they're, let's say they're young adults. Many of them, they've already have degrees under their belt. So they're learned. I find that this generation, because I'm a university student as well, many of the people that are students, they are so smart and they are so, I think, open to what is the right thing, what's the most reasonable thing we can do. So what I'm most curious about is what has been the feedback? You've been doing this now for a few cohorts generally, and we've got broad shoulders. What's the feedback you're receiving from the students about being able to integrate a podcast that's really about a behind the scenes look into the Canadian sports system?
What are they sharing with you about the integration of this podcast?
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Okay, well, the first thing that we do with our program is we do bring in a lot of subject matter experts. Well, guess what? These guys, our students are now listening to you guys as subject matter experts, and they're hearing your podcast and you're talking about a certain subject. And you always, of course, because you guys are sport law, you dial it in about a subject matter, but you talk about the legal elements. So my process is they listen to it, then I force them to do a quiz. I always tell them, I said, do what I do, use a pen, have a piece of paper, listen to the podcast, write down things that interest you or, or trigger you. And guess what? They'll probably, those triggers will probably be things that are in the quiz. Because we have a process, right? An lvo process, like learning outcomes. The process is we have to teach them something, then we have to kind of make sure that they did pay attention and learn something. And then my goal always is, can they take what we just told them and actually use it? Because to me, our program is not like, you know, business 101, where the kids are just coming out of high school and they're learning the basics of business.
We're postgrad. Everybody is like, as you said, it's learned, they're more mature, they're in it to get into a career. So we really focus on making sure that we're helping them and guiding them towards becoming valuable employees. And I, you know, and I invite them always to own a business. I've owned businesses. I, I'm, I'm a terrible employee. I'm a really good independent entrepreneur which has Worked really well because I know I'm an employee of the school and I don't want to get fired, but it's, I'm a great teacher because I love molding the minds and getting these students out the door with tools at hand. And you guys provide those tools through your podcast. So they listen. They have to listen. They hear about it, then we test them, then we talk about it. So. And I'm a big fan of road memory over and over and over. If you keep hearing it over and over again, it does sink in. So I'm a big fan of that. So they're introduced to your podcast, which is really easy listening. It really is. You guys, don't get too technical. You're much more, forgive me saying it this way, you're much more touchy feely about law than most lawyers are. Right. And it allows the students to kind of get a grip of how this will affect them.
If I can jump to something that I was looking at your episode 34. So Algonquin College is very tied to the, you know, the indigenous world. Right. And so last year I had to kind of bring it up with the students saying in the summer, because again, I remember where summer. So it was brand new. June 11th was when you, when you published it, it was all. It was episode 34, fostering indigenous wisdom in the Workplace.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: Yeah. With Carrie. Yeah, Carrie Cole.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: And our school was pumping the, all this stuff up and I said, these kids are being surrounded by all of this. So how about we introduce it as, guess what? This is now the new world. It's certainly the new world at Algonquin. It's the new world pretty much everywhere. Right. You, you see this all the, all the time in Canada. So anyway, it was great. You guys did it. I didn't do it. I didn't know the subject matter well enough. But you did, so it was permanent.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: And I mentioned previously that I've had the ability to lecture numerous times at different colleges, schools, universities. And some of the experiences that I've had have been awesome. The students are engaging, interactive, paying attention, asking questions, ask a million questions. After the lecture, they're planning their futures. And other times, people. In one particular incident, there was one student fell asleep. It must have been my, my topic.
[00:21:25] Speaker C: You do have a soothing voice.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: I, I tell you, maybe it was an 8:30 class, I can't remember, but I start. Well, walked towards the student and started talking rather loudly and eventually woke him up and he apologized profusely thereafter. But I'm curious, Ed, as to what what are the topics and interests that students have? What do they like talking about? Like, do they like talking about human rights or do they like governance or risk management or all those very enticing topics.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Absolutely. Human rights is big certainly because they all follow sports and sports has a lot of contract law. And then the other one is stuff like when athletes get into trouble. Right. And or famous people get into trouble. And it could be. The trouble could be is a wide range.
I usually try to find, for example, in, in you know, in your podcast stuff that fits that. But that's usually ends up being the topic du jour. Right. They there'll be some flare up based on either something somebody said or something that somebody unearthed. Literally. In one of our courses is either the comms course coming up in a week or two, we will talk about scandal and how to manage scandals and you guys talk about that in your podcast. What I try to do with them in this first level, because you got to remember they're, they're brand new to all of this is I kind of give them a hint of here's something we're going to talk about in, you know, legal and ethical issues. It's going to be a podcast and I'll give them kind of a go to the, go to the sport law. You know that you guys have a ton of blogs and I even tell them I said I don't mind because again, the rote memory, I don't mind if they listen pre listen to a bunch of podcasts because I'm only going to select the ones that I want to talk about that is based on what our curriculum is dealing with at the moment. We start talking to them in this in the fall here and saying to them this is coming down the pike. You're going dealing with this. But here, let's talk about it now on this level because we're going to get into it in detail. You know, in the third level, big thing is they want to know is the stuff that intrigues them at the time. And what I find most students, and quite frankly at every cocktail party, it's always some dialogue about what scandal just happened.
[00:23:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: And instead of. And I always tell them, do not be a fan because I've witnessed fans in the production world during a live event get caught up in being a fan and making mistakes in their job.
[00:24:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: I tell them, you can't. You gotta be objective, not subjective.
[00:24:09] Speaker C: Those are, those are really, I'd say wise words, Ed. And you know, as we, as we kind of wind down our Conversation. I'd love to get a sense from you. Steve and I talk a lot about Sport 2.0. Right. Just as a way to think about, you know, where are we heading. And rather than staying stuck in, in all the ways, the many ways that Sport 1.0 has been a harsher experience for so many people, I think we, we are listening to the wise words and express needs of younger people coming into the system and saying, challenging some of these assumptions around leadership and what it takes to produce a world class Paralympian. Right. And we're just asking ourselves, for instance, would we treat kindergarten students or high school students or university students the same way we're treating young athletes on the playing field from K to k to 12? So I think when we, when we examine a system and we ask ourselves, is it really designed to meet the needs of the people, all the people we know that the answer is no. This system needs a reboot. If we understand that and we put that out there as a thesis of possibility, I'm curious, what do you think the students would say or what are they saying about what will have them work and serve in this sport system, this reimagined sports system, what do you think they would say about Sport 2.0?
[00:25:54] Speaker B: I think they're much more open to Sport 2.0 than, let's say people from my generation because did their undergrads during COVID They're much more aware of all the stuff that's going on in the world. So you're so yes, the Sport 2.0, they're very open to it, they understand. So for example, we do bring that up in one of the podcasts where we're talking about the new order, the new way of looking at things. And you guys get into a great discussion in I can't even remember the podcast, but it was about the idea that at the grassroots level, you've got a much more flowing structure where you now have to care about people's needs, special needs, we'll call, you know, all of these things that back in the day it was the opposite. You know, these people were a minority and the whole function of dealing with parents and their concerns really didn't matter. They were there to pay a fee and bring their kid. Now it's a, almost like a family process where all organizations all the way up have to deal with all of the, the variances that we have, we now have in our society. And I think our program and I think our students are great because they really are open minded. They rarely come in with a preconceived, kind of hit the wall kind of dialogue. It's. They'll be open to and we try to have as much dialogue and as much discussion and we bring in as many experts like we had you in the class, I think it was two years ago. Right. And it was a really interesting dialogue afterwards because that's when I don't. We can talk about it. But bringing a subject matter expert like you guys into the fold and into their, into their space allows them to teach me, which sounds goofy to say it that way, but I get a lot out of that because these, these, these guys are coming at it from their world, their perspective, their age group, you know, what they know. And the 2.0. Absolutely. It's a brand new evolution of the way sport should function. You guys have a great handle on it.
[00:28:14] Speaker C: Well, I know Steve's going to wrap this up. I just wanted to express my gratitude, Ed, for, you know, your vision for. As a teaching aide. Because that's really what Sportopia is doing. The podcast is, is alongside all the other things that you do as a teacher. You're using the podcast as a way of opening up their minds, giving them something really practical and some really good questions. You, before we started recording, you were commenting on leadership and you know, what is leadership? And when you ask people who's a mentor, or I like to call them Femtor, you know, what are, what are the people that really that you admire? And for me, I admire people who are authentic. I admire people who are willing to kind of expose their soft underbelly and be real. And I admire people who make me feel like I matter. So I think that when we ask people who do you admire? And then we follow up with why, we learn something about the students that we're all here to hopefully create that kind of self awareness around what matters to me and why. So thank you, Ed, for being that kind of leader for your students. Steve, I know you're going to wrap things up.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just going to thank Ed for sharing your experience with your students, Ed, and how you've been able to integrate the podcast. That's something we never thought about at all, ever. And it was really cool to hear, hear your story on how you've done that. I guess Dean will have to keep doing it because the students of Algonquin will be lost in their legal and ethical class without. Without our podcast.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: True.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Again, thank you, Ed. It was really awesome to hear you share your experience. I love personally working with students as well and seeing future, and I'm really happy that you're out there molding sport 2.0 and our future leaders. So again, thanks for your time and thanks for being here.
[00:30:14] Speaker C: In the episode notes below, you'll find some sport law blogs where you can find more information related to our conversation today. Thank you so much to our listeners. We're so grateful to share our vision of Sportopia with you as we all look to elevate sport.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: As always, to have your say in Sportopia, email us at HelloPortLaw CA or on social media at SportLaw CA to let us know what you want to hear next. Stay tuned for our next episode. Thanks, Dina. Thanks Ed. Have a good day.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Sat.
