Ryan Spoon

President, Yahoo Media Group · 1 appearance on the record.

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executiveoperatorfounderinvestor@ryanspoon ↗LinkedIn ↗ryanspoon.com ↗

Ryan Spoon oversees digital media operations at Yahoo, building on prior leadership as Chief Operating Officer at Sorare and BetMGM and Senior Vice President at ESPN. Earlier, he founded beRecruited.com and led the Dogpatch Labs incubator while at Polaris Venture Partners.

10statements → 9claims → 3claims resolved → 33%fully supported → 4/5average certainty → 1.2/5average debate potential → 1said about them ↓

1 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 5 not checkable as stated how the 9 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 7 assertions · 1 insight · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 9 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Ryan argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Prediction Held up

ESPN.com is being fully redesigned around personalized user content

“We're in the process and it's in beta now with a about a 100,000 randomly sampled users, but we're gonna totally redesign ESPN.com, and a very significant chunk of the real estate across all pages is specifically for you versus me.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 19:42 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

What they said10 What others said1 Episodes1

Everything Ryan Spoon said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Partly supported

ESPN digital hit 10 billion monthly minutes, 1.5 billion from fantasy

“This past month was, across ESPN, our historically great month. Year over year, across multiple, you know measurements, 30, 40% growth. We had ten billion minutes across all ESPN digital. Across all digital. And over one and a half billion of that was fantasy.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:55 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Sunday is ESPN digital's busiest day despite lacking Sunday NFL broadcasts

“Our most active day of the year is Sunday. And coincidentally, we do not have NFL Sunday on our air. Fantasy makes a big chunk of that.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:39 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Insight

Requiring Facebook logins elevates online comment and engagement quality for ESPN

“And simple things like using Facebook as a qualifier for conversation. It lifts the quality of engagement.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 12:59 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Native Twitter video playback is ESPN's fastest-growing video segment

“Fastest growing part of our video business is, you know, again, frictionless, one click video play within the Twitter feed.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 13:49 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Assertion Not checkable as stated

ESPN SportsCenter app logged-in user rate grew from 0% to 70%

“Over the last year, you know, we put a gate up in front of our largest Mobile apps, SportsCenter and in a year went from zero percent of people logged in because they were customizing to the device as opposed to the user name, and it's now, you know, around 70…”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 19:21 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Assertion Not checkable as stated

ESPN signed multiple startup deals from one a16z executive briefing day

“And in six hours probably met 15 companies. This was one of them. And we walked out of there actually with a couple deals, a couple interesting partnerships.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 1:20 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Prediction Not publicly verifiable

ESPN expects to reach 15 million fantasy sports players this year

“We'll have, I think across all of our fantasy games this year, fifteen million players.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:44 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Prediction Held up

ESPN.com is being fully redesigned around personalized user content

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 19:42 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Assertion Not checkable as stated

ESPN sends personalized video clip alerts within 15 seconds of live plays

“On Saturday, we will cut a thousand live clips from football Across college football, and we'll buzz your phone within 15 seconds of those plays happening on the field.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 20:30 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Assertion Partly supported

Over 55% of ESPN users exclusively access content on mobile devices

“Last month, 55% of our users exclusively accessed us on a mobile device.”

Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 21:54 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

The other half of the tape: Ryan Spoon's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Ryan Spoon, by other people (1)

Disclosure

ESPN rejected Tilt's pitch for a Magic Johnson-led LeBron dunk campaign

“We mocked something up overnight, and sent it to Ryan. I was like, we need to do this to where Magic Johnson is hosting a crowdfunding campaign, branded ESPN for LeBron, to the, to do the dunk contest. I thought it was, ah, slam dunk. Actually, that was no pun…”

James Beshara Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 17:37 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
a16z Podcast \| When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide	Jan 2, 2019	9m

Ryan Spoon

The record, in short

Their most notable supported claim

Statements about Ryan Spoon, by other people (1)

Appearances (1)

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