Session 5: Eighty-Seven Days

From a legal pad in a loft to six teams paid and committed.

Suggested Listening: “In Motion” by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

The loft in the North Loop. A legal pad, a coffee mug, scattered fliers, and every screen pointed at the same thing: making Ultimate Hoops real in eighty-seven days.

On January 1, 2006, I wrote it down and started telling people.

Opening night is March 28.

Eighty-seven days.

I had a legal pad and a dream and nothing else. No website. No logo. No uniforms. No referees.

I had zero operational experience.

But for almost a decade I had been a marketing executive in New York, working for some of the biggest media companies in the world. I had sold sponsorship packages into Fortune 500 boardrooms and built campaigns that moved audiences at scale. Growing a brand and monetizing it was not a skill I had to learn. It was hardwired. Now I was going to point it at a rec basketball league.