Who: Howard Kamen
What: Partnership Editor, USA Today; member, FSTA board of directors
So, what’s a partnership editor? Does he handle the wedding, engagement and anniversary announcements? Is he in charge of making sure everyone in the news room works well together?
Actually, it means that Howard Kamen is the point person regarding all the content for USA Today products that isn’t produced in-house. He seeks out and recommends opportunities for the company, handles the contract work with outside content providers and works as the “intermediary” between those providers and the various editorial and other departments. Along with the daily paper, this means overseeing work for USAToday.com, the IT and design departments and Sports Weekly.
Although it doesn’t allow him to share in the joy of those announcing their engagements, it does sound like a pretty good way to combine training and experience in journalism and law.
“I actually wanted to be a sports agent and went to law school with that in mind,” Kamen says. “However, after a pair of paid internships — one at a very small sports representation firm and another at an extremely large athletic management company — I realized representing athletes wasn’t for me. I didn’t mind the contract/endorsement work, but the recruitment aspect was, shall we say, a bit ethically challenging for me.”
Rather than go the Jerry Maguire route, the graduate of University of Virginia and Catholic University law school joined Sports Business Daily as a staff writer for about a year before landing at USA Today in the sports department for the website.
Kamen spent about 11 and a half years roaming around that department, beginning as a content developer before overseeing the Major League Baseball content for a while and then spending a little more than half of his dot-com stint as deputy managing editor. That role involved him in the oversight of the department’s daily operations and introduced him to the partnership work that has now become his central focus.
In addition to his other duties in the sports department, Kamen was in charge of fantasy coverage before taking over his latest position. That work included overseeing partnerships with fantasy content providers and even pitching and co-writing the paper’s fantasy football column for a while.
“I’ve always thought we had such potential,” Kamen says. “Probably anyone who started playing fantasy sports in the ’80s or early ’90s used the USA TODAY sports section to crunch their stats by hand, right? But, despite our efforts otherwise, we kind of let the ESPNs, CBSs and Yahoos of the world slip past us.”
Kamen says that his efforts, along with those of some of his colleagues, have helped to turn things around.
“Our sports department now has a fantasy sports desk with a designated fantasy sports editor and a staff of writers,” he says. “Plus, we’ve made some solid strategic partnerships, including a new radio deal for (hopefully) a nationally syndicated fantasy sports program, to enhance our presence in the space.”
If he seems to talk about the fantasy stuff passionately, it’s because he has played, loved and been involved with the games for years. Kamen traces his participation in fantasy baseball and football back about 20 years and puts himself among that aforementioned group of players who had to scan the sports pages and score their leagues by hand. Today’s league commissioners should think twice before complaining about the hassles of running a league. No matter how often your leaguemates whine about the fairness of trades, at least you don’t have to mail out the weekly scores and transaction reports the old-fashioned way.
Kamen doesn’t just remember those days of fantasy, he can trace a direct link via a baseball league and a football league that he says have been running since the late 1980s. In addition to his eight leagues between those two sports, Kamen has branched out over the years.
“I’ve expanded my participation to include the usual suspects: fantasy NBA, NHL, NASCAR and golf,” he says, noting that baseball remains the most rewarding because of the length of the season and the amount of knowledge necessary to win. “I’ve also been a member of a fantasy ACC basketball league for the last 10-plus years with a group of friends from school.
“And now that we’re all getting a little older with families, some of us … have formed a pair of parent-kid leagues — one baseball and one football — where the parents and kids compete against each other.”
Although fantasy is no longer part of his duties at USA Today, Kamen has managed to stay involved in the industry. In February, he was elected to the board of directors for the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.
“I believe the FSTA — and what it stands for — has great promise, and I wanted to be a part of shaping the direction of this growing industry,” he says.
For most of us on the outside, the central focus of Major League Baseball’s winter meetings tends to be the chatter about potential trades and free-agent signings. From a business standpoint, however, another angle only mildly related to actual players threatens to cool the hot stove.
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