Northeastern student hopes to build the next ESPN
Jason Kornwitz
If Evan Brunell hopes to build the next ESPN, he’s certainly on his way.
Brunell, a 21-year-old journalism major at Northeastern University, is the president of Most Valuable Network, a burgeoning, independent sports media company that relies on volunteer bloggers to cover their favorites teams.
What quietly began as an idea between a small circle of friends in high school just three years ago, has quickly become a phenomenon, a full-blown business venture that’s received coverage on Sports Illustrated’s web site, the Edmonton Sun and deadspin.com, one of the most popular sports blogs.
“It wasn’t intended to be a company,” Brunell says. “It wasn’t intended to be big. But I took charge of the whole thing and it kind of took off on me.”
And take off it did. Most Valuable Network (MVN.com), is currently made up of nearly 300 writers from all walks of life and from all age groups (bloggers range from 16 to 80 years old) bent on providing comprehensive sporting news, game stories, statistical analysis and editorial coverage of a range of sports from baseball and football to golf, wrestling and boxing.
Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon, St. Louis Cardinals ace Mark Mulder and tennis superstar Roger Federer are a few among a host of athletes interviewed on MVN. And while MVN doesn’t have a major backer like CBS or CNN, it has credentials to attend every minor league baseball game and has, for example, been invited to Spring Training for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Golden State Warriors’ practices.
“I want MVN to become the next ESPN,” Brunell says. “I want to get a TV channel, I want to pay our writers a full time salary. Once we can turn MVN into [a blogger’s] job and not their hobby, that’s when it will really take off.”
Brandon Rosage, MVN’s web designer and producer, has helped incorporate a podcast and live radio station into the network’s repertoire. Rosage, himself, hosts a two-hour general sports radio show every week day called “Outsider Radio” and “The Pitch,” which focuses on Major League Baseball.
Rosage, who began working full-time on MVN last October when Brunell bought-out his independent sports podcast network “360ThePitch,” trusted Brunell’s leadership qualities and management skills so much that he was willing to put his financial stability on the line.
“I’m not just here to do web design. This is something that for me was a major financial risk,” Rosage says.
“He’s built such an enormous network. Everything is really calculated and organized,” Rosage says. “I was surprised and hesitant at first but he finds a way to keep on top of things and keep MVN moving.”
Brunell’s intensity and passion for such a large undertaking is impressive when you realize he’s still a college student. But when coupled with the fact that he was diagnosed as deaf when he was 1 year old, it’s even more inspiring.
Still, Brunell doesn’t view his inability to hear as a challenge, but rather as a way of life.
“This was the hand I was dealt,” Brunell says, “and I just deal with it.”
At Northeastern, Brunell is active in the university’s Deaf Club (NUDC), where he designs the group’s website. And his involvement in the American Sign Language Program (ASL) allows him to interact and become friends with other students who look out for his best interests.
“When I was looking at colleges to go to, I kept hearing ‘you’re going to have problems with support services, you’re going to have to fight for everything you want.’ I’ve never had to fight for anything here. The support system is fantastic.”
A Sturbridge, Mass., native, Brunell attended The Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Mass., until he was 10 years old and received a cochlear implant at 16. Equipped today with a note-taker or an interpreter for class, Brunell carries a 3.73 GPA and plans to graduate in 2009.
David Del Pizzo, Assistant Director of Deaf Students and Interpreting Services at Northeastern, has known Brunell since he was a freshman and continues to work with him in an advisory role. What’s more important, however, is their friendship.
Del Pizzo, who himself is deaf, recognizes Evan as a dedicated, hard-working individual with an insatiable thirst for sports.
“Evan is a very motivated person,” Del Pizzo says. “He knows so much about sports and he’s got great people skills and is very friendly.
“He’s a good debater on sports, and I’m a sports person too so I love to get into it with Evan. We can really have some hot discussions.”
Del Pizzo, who admits he favors MVN over ESPN, says he’s taught Brunell to meet challenges, assert himself and explore all avenues available to solve problems. But Brunell has taught Del Pizzo important lessons as well.
“One thing that I’ve learned from Evan is that you have to approach things with an open mind. You can’t make a decision based on small things; you have to have a broad perspective.”
Brunell’s talent for continually thinking ahead and his ability to transform his imagination into reality with MVN’s new radio and podcast channels has been helped along by his participation in Northeastern’s co-op program.
As an assistant for the Red Sox foundation, the official charity arm of the baseball club, Brunell created programs for various events such as the ever-popular Picnic in the Park and for the celebration of the opening of The Teddy Ebersol’s Red Sox Fields.
“The main reason I came to Northeastern was for the co-op. You come across all these different problems and difficult scenarios and you learn what to do on co-op so when you graduate you will know what to do.”
For his second co-op, Brunell worked for Northeastern Marketing and Communications web services. The opportunity to observe, first-hand, the inner-workings of an operation from a marketing and public relations perspective, has influenced Brunell’s approach to MVN.
“I got to see a better way of how an organization is run,” Brunell says. “I saw plans and outlines and that have helped me make MVN more professional.
“I’m starting to shift the way we do business to a more professional way. Now, I’m asking for business plans, setting up different guidelines, trying to make sure things run seamlessly. Co-op gave me a better idea of how a business should be run as a whole.”
Brunell’s current internship with ESPN Radio in Boston has given him the opportunity to write commercials for various organizations in the area, but if he has it his way, he’ll be able to work full-time on MVN by the time he graduates.
But it won’t be easy.
By incorporating a slew of advertisements into MVN, Brunell hopes to eventually gain the financial backing to pay the writers, but as of right now, it’s still a work in progress.
“I’m running a business,” Brunell says. “It takes a lot of work. More work than anybody thinks. My father runs an oil business. When I was little I used to think ‘that’s pretty easy, you just tell people what to do.’ But it’s so much more complicated than that.
“I’ve learned how to be a business man, I’ve learned how to approach people in a business-like way, I’ve learned what to do, what not to do. I still can’t really believe it but it is something that you’re not going to know what it entails until you actually do it.”
Bijan Bayne, however, strongly believes in Brunell, and says he’s a model for young students or sports fans with media aspirations.
Bayne covers the NFL in editorial style for his blog “No Huddle Offense” on MVN, and has written a book about the earliest Black professional basketball players called Sky Kings: Black Pioneers of Professional Basketball.
“[Brunell] is ambitious, business-like and the man has vision,” Bayne says. “I would believe in anything Evan sets his mind to doing. As the reputation [of MVN] grows, and the marketing and partnership skills of MVN bloggers and the front office grow, it will set a standard for grassroots sports communications—fan driven and aimed at fans.”
Accordingly, the enormous amount of effort Brunell puts into MVN (no fewer than 20 hours per week) and the responsibility attached to such a venture, enables Brunell to maintain an air of humility unfamiliar to many others his age.
“This isn’t something I did by grand design,” Brunell says. “I came up with a good idea one day and I ran with it. But at the end of the day, I’m still the college kid trying to graduate and trying to have fun while I still can. But I will say that there’s no better college I could have picked for it. I made the right choice, no doubt about that.”