Berry Tramel told a story to a boisterous group of roughly 150 people earlier this week at The Joinery restaurant in Bricktown. Berry tells great stories.
He recalled a phone call a few years ago from a former colleague at The Oklahoman newspaper who sought his interest in joining a new, online only sports reporting venture.
Berry said he was interested. As long as his fellow Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson came along, he was ready to go.
Turns out, the timing wasn’t right for Mike Koehler’s brainstorm. The deal didn’t happen. Berry and Jenni continued to carry The Oklahoman as its lead sports columnists as they had for the past two decades-plus.
Then Berry got another call from Koehler in 2023. This time, Koehler had financial backing for his project and he had a name. Sellout Crowd.
Was Berry still interested? Berry replied that as long as Jenni was still part of the plan, yes he was.
The next thing you know, “Berry Tramel is a Sellout” billboards started appearing across the OKC metro, teasing the launch of Sellout Crowd.
That’s the story that Berry told at the Sellout Crowd’s Bricktown launch party, where he was joined by Koehler, Jenni Carlson, Mike Sherman and a host of other Sellout Crowd content “creators” and backers.
All of those folks I just named are former colleagues of mine at The Oklahoman.
The Launch Party also featured Toby Keith and Bob Stoops, celebrity investors in the venture. There was Kris Murray, Koehler’s business partner and son of long-time OKC broadcaster Ed Murray.
And there was a lineup of other content creators that included former Tulsa World columnist Guerin Emig, Brett Dawson, Jon Hamm, Todd Lisenbee, Sam Mayes, brothers Ben and Sam Hutchens, Ed Murray, Bob Stoops and Eli Lederman. The team also includes a couple of other former Oklahoman colleagues of mine, Jay Spears and Jacquelyn Musgrove, both of whom provide technical expertise.
I’m spending time daily on the site and have figured out that I get most of the same type content from Berry and Jenni that I found in the newspaper. There is heavy coverage of OU, OSU and the OKC Thunder.
And video. Lots and lots of video blogs, I guess you call them.
This morning I watched Tramel’s awesome interview with sports radio broadcast star Paul Finebaum.
So, you get the drift of the type of coverage the Sellout Crowd is bringing readers/viewers, and the content is not behind any sort of pay wall. In fact, it appears a number of advertisers have jumped on board, as well.
As I talked to some of the folks who showed up at the Launch Party, one guy said Sellout Crowd reminded him of The Ringer, which is the sports and culture site launched about a decade ago by Bill Simmons. I can see the resemblance, but glad Sellout Crowd has an Oklahoma focus.
Sellout Crowd itself is well put together in my opinion. You can see that lots of thought was put into making each article/post look professional in its presentation.
The Launch Party concluded with a series of remarks from Berry, Koehler and Kris Murray. Koehler also has another thriving business known as Smirk New Media.
Anyway, Koehler made some heartfelt comments, tearfully thanking those who supported his vision and those who have come on board.
“We want to honor the people for the great work they do,” Koehler told the crowd about Sellout Crowd’s presentation of its content creators. “And we got the cream of the crop.”
So, while I was pleading “say it ain’t so” a couple of months ago in a blog post, I’m all in on Sellout Crowd today. It has my favorite writers and focuses on topics in which I’m interested.
Which doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned my first love, the newspaper. I’m still a subscriber and a reader of The Oklahoman every day.
There is room for both.
Jim Stafford's BlogOKC 