Greg Olsen Joins Bill Burr and Paul Virzi to Talk Analytics, Youth Sports, Interviewing for the Giants Job

Youth Inc. co-founder Greg Olsen recently joined the Anything Better? podcast with comedians Bill Burr and Paul Virzi and delivered some gems about analytics in the NFL, emotions in sports and an encounter with Giants Owner Steve Tisch in a New York City restaurant, where the conversation turned to the Giants’ head coaching position.

Olsen also talked about his passion for youth sports and how and why he choose to start Youth Inc.

Here are some gems from Olsen’s appearance (you can watch the full episode here):

On the use of analytics in the NFL

“It’s a great conversation that I love to have. Database decision making is happening for me as I prepare to call a broadcast. You are not studying box scores; yards, touchdowns are irrelevant. If you’re really trying to understand what makes a team really good or bad there are some many deep layers that comes from this data that’s collected. Like anything, the data is only as good as your ability to interpret it.

"We’re not going to get into the nerdy ins and outs of analytics on the broadcast, but it does shape storylines. If you want to start talking about the struggles of the Philadelphia Eagles … instead of saying they stink, they can’t score, fire everybody, let’s really dive into why is this team different. Well, you start looking at their average first down yardage and what does first down struggles do? It puts you in second and pass. Are they a good downfield passing team? And you start layering in elements and you say OK maybe this is why the formula is broken. Let's have that conversation on air and how do they fix it. That's a lot more interesting of a conversation than just saying, 'Hey, they're scoring seven less points a game.' Well, why?"

On emotion in sports  

"Emotion is still a huge element of sports and it's a huge element of football, right? There's an energy. I'm not saying guys don't feel it. I felt it. There's I would argue it's confidence. It's a mindset, right? That's real for athletes. There are days where I'm sure you guys stand up on stage and man it just comes out exactly the way you imagined, and I'm sure there's other days where like your timing's off and it didn't land the way and you just felt you feel uncomfortable. But in a game like football those feelings are real. I'm not discounting how guys on the sideline in their brain imagine. All I'm saying is it doesn't impact the game."

On the time Olsen unofficially interviewed for the Giants’ head coaching job

"You want to hear a great story? So, couple years ago, the hiring cycle where they hired Dabol, this was probably like a week or two before they officially announced that they hired Dabol. My wife and I are in New York City and we're having dinner at the Polo Bar and we're sitting in that basement there.

"We're having a nice dinner and there was a couple next to us and over the course of the dinner we start talking. It turns out it's Tish, the owner of the Giants. So, I've probably had a couple old fashions and we start out just like how's the hiring going?

"Well, like an hour and a half goes by. I guess I had a couple more old fashions in me by the end. And next thing you know, I went on like a 20 minute job interview. I'm like getting progressively more like emotional and like excited and I'm selling this idea that he should hire me because we sat next to each other in the Polo Bar.

"So, long story short, the next morning I wake up and my wife's like and I was like, 'Kar, did I pitch myself to the owner of the Giants?' She's like, 'Yeah.' I was like, 'Do you think he bought it?' So, I've in my mind I've interviewed for one head coaching job unofficially." 

On youth sports and starting Youth Inc.

 "I've been out there having conversations with people via podcast and different outlets for the last couple years on our Youth Inc. program and interviewing coaches and athletes and Olympians and parents, just everyone.

"I'm raising three kids, two boys and a daughter. My wife and I would lay in bed at night. We'd be at dinner with friends. And the entire conversation was about youth sports. A great story. What team is your kid on? Are you doing lessons? Did you use this guy in the gym? What the coach is doing? It would dominate everything we did. And I was like, you know what? If we don't have the answers for any of this, who does?

"I've lived my entire life in this world and I don't even understand what's going on now. Let's go out and have these conversations. So from there it's grown into an entire platform, multi-content contributors, all sports, men's, women's, high level, just all across the board.

"There's content, there's information. We're doing like a mini doc. We got some guys going around that are like crashing baseball practices. Two really cool social media influence guys. So, it's a really cool. There's a commerce engine behind it for teams to like customize gear and schools and whatnot. So, it's a really fun project."