Carol Cone:
I'm Carol Cone, and welcome to Purpose 360, the podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact.
Welcome to Purpose 360, and today, I am so honored to have a longtime friend and someone I have admired in the industry for so many years because he's really writing the playbook and the rulebook at the same time. And that's Kevin Martinez, and he is Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at ESPN. He's also a friend, a former client, and someone with so much wisdom because he's had over 25 years' experience in the industry in a variety of positions that are so important to serve and shape citizenship initiatives that both support corporate objectives, and the business, as well as providing deep impact to recipients of wonderful work.
So, welcome to the show, Kevin.
Kevin Martinez:
Thank you so much, Carol. It's a pleasure to be here. I've been looking forward to it.
Carol Cone:
So, let's just start with a little bit of your background. And also, I want to know why do you do what you do?
Kevin Martinez:
Wow. Go right to the core of the question. I grew up in a multiracial family and as a military kid in Hawaii, Mexican and Native-American descent. I knew I was gay early on. So, there was all these different identities of myself. But I have to tell you, my mom and dad were built of a stock that you had to show up and you had to give when you show up, you had to be part of where you went.
And so, for me, that's been really important from a military perspective, making sure that you can be accountable, that you live by the values that you set, that you know you will make mistakes, but always own up to them. My mom grew up in bottom Texas on the Panhandle border in Texas and Oklahoma, so Southern roots, but very much built into, believe it or not, Swedish roots.
Carol Cone:
Oh my gosh. This is a smorgasbord of personalities and backgrounds.
Kevin Martinez:
Here's an example of what defined me. My dad did not want us to learn to speak Spanish when we were growing up.
He actually fought against it because he believed it would be a generative opportunity for me that he never got because everyone would think we were Mexican and with easy that people called us Martinez for years and years, even though we said Martinez, didn't really matter. But that allowed me to do other things. I took French and Russian in high school and college, so go figure. So, those types of things I think really helped, Carol. I grew up in Hawaii, as I said, one of the best.
Kevin Martinez:
But I grew up with... all my friends were Pacific Islander Asians. So, for a long degree of time I felt very much part of that community.
Carol Cone:
You must have been really, really shattered with the Maui fire.
Kevin Martinez:
I really was. And I think our team knows that too. We have quite a few programs there, and we were doing a basketball classic there. We had some other things that were going on that were supposed to be in Maui that we had to make a decision to move them out, asking the right people should we be there?
But we've done a lot of continued efforts there, working with the community funds to make sure we're hearing from the people what they need, not what we think they need, but absolutely, those fires were devastating. And the people and the resilience of the Hawaiian culture is just phenomenal.
Carol Cone:
Yeah. I just want to make sure, whenever you have these little gems, I want to just point them out to our listeners. We were hearing what they need. That is a through line throughout your entire career that you are a great listener, and that you don't go into any of your situations with the hubris of, I know what you need. So, let's turn, we're beginning to peel back your superpowers. Do you have a special superpower or superpowers?
Kevin Martinez:
I think I have referenced this before. If I haven't, I probably wanted to. I have always felt that I'm intuitive. I've always felt as if not that I know what people are going to do or say, but I always feel like from an empathy level, the level of engagement that needs to be developed and derived before we start to do it. And I've had success in that quite a bit. And then, my team knows that I'm a futurist.
So, part of the deal is to try to stay out in front of things because our job demands us to give a perspective of what might happen could happen, and then the multiple stakeholders that we have, whether it's public affairs, or legal, or CEO office. We have to give them a perspective of not what is currently in the practice, but what should happen if we do. So, that to me, I think is my superpower, is to be a little bit intuitive.
Carol Cone:
And so, let's talk a little bit about your history in your jobs because I didn't know about the politics, KPMG, Home Depot, Starbucks, Eddie Bauer. And I love another through line throughout all of your jobs is that you always say you need to know the business first.
Kevin Martinez:
Yes. Oh my gosh, yes.
Kevin Martinez:
Carol, I think it's the one thing that has helped me most and also given me a greater presence of seeing myself in a conversation at a company because you got to know who your stakeholders are, and what their goals, and opportunities are, but you got to know your business.
And so, even if you're making ice cream at Ben & Jerry's, you've got to understand what Unilever is doing as well. You have to understand that there're these elements that exist. You got to know dairy farmers. You've got to know what buying sugar cane means versus sugar beets. You've got to have those elements.
So, I think it's really critical to really buy into development as saying that it's not just about my technical skills, it's about the functional skills that exist within the corporation that you're in. Because ultimately, and I find this to be true in every place I go, CSR will never have the resources that it needs, but your peers do. So, learn how to be good collaborative partners with them.
Carol Cone:
That's another gem. So, you love sports. I just want for our listeners, because when I hear your background, what sport were you really great at? And now I know that you were in cheerleading, right?
Kevin Martinez:
I was a gymnast first.
Kevin Martinez:
I know our listeners can't see us, but I'm not of the body type of a gymnast. I'm a linebacker type, but I was actually pretty good. But there weren't a lot of men gymnastics programs, particularly in Hawaii. So, I went to a lot of club things and I was a great tumbler, I was a great twitch guy, so I could do really quick things, but the string things weren't my best, but vault, and flex, and stuff like that.
But I took that, and I also enjoyed it so much that I also became a cheerleader because I loved sports and I loved the idea of how sports brings community. The thrill of that being part of something and being part of school spirit to me is like, you can't make that up. That is something that you have to engage in. So, that literally got me there.
I also played tennis and track in high school. I played a little football. I didn't care for that. My brother was, of course, the high school quarterback. I was not. But those things gave me some great strength moving forward into sports.
Carol Cone:
So, now let's turn to ESPN, of course, because you've been there almost 14 years. You've done amazing work. And I wanted to ask you first, what is ESPN's purpose? And then, I want to get into what are your favorite, you've done lots of things, but what are the couple of the favorite things that you were just so proud of?
Kevin Martinez:
So, the purpose, and I know this is not the same thing, so I'm going to be clear about saying it. I don't want people to assume that a mission is a purpose because you actually have to travel that mission to get to purpose. But our mission statement at ESPN, think about this, Carol, is to serve the sports fan anytime, anywhere. It's that simple.
But that serve, that service piece is I'm like, I always tell our team, we are so blessed to have that. We don't need a mission statement in our own department because service is the highest calling of humanity. So, that brings us to the point of what CSR can do. So, our purpose is to really support that mission statement and to realize how it happens with our employees, with our stakeholders, with our communities. That's our purpose.
Carol Cone:
That's wonderful. So, in a way, you're like a servant leader to fans anywhere, anytime. You have done so many wonderful things at ESPN. What are the two things you're most proud of in your programmatic work?
Kevin Martinez:
When I came to ESPN, there was a guy named George Bodenheimer, who started in the mail room, who became the chairman of ESPN, who is renowned through sports as being one of the best leaders ever. George said to me when I came on board, we need to be more about sports in the sector of sports. We need to do things that are really driving the sports fan and not just the athlete or the leagues or whatever, but the sports fan.
And it's not just one program, but creating access to sport for youth has been an amazing journey. We've done Special Olympics, which is created, we became the global presenting sponsor worldwide for Unified Sports. And working with Tim Schreiber, you got to understand what unified sports means, it's bringing everyone together both with and without intellectual disabilities.
It was a whole new way of thinking. I am most proud of how we were able to create that. And now almost 70% of all of the team sports in the Special Olympics are unified. It brings a person without intellectual disabilities who are going to be a leader. It brings a coach and it brings a teammate. That's triples the movement, but it also really creates also a safety net for an athlete who has intellectual disabilities.
It also creates less bullying, and that creates this community of opportunity that people can bring with them. So, to me, that is one of the most amazing things that we have been blessed to work with. And my team is just hitting out of the park globally with those types of numbers. I think our goal was to double the movement. And we have tripled the movement globally.
I think it's 1.8 million unified athletes. When we started, it was half a million. And so, that to me is impact. I can demonstrate impact, but as you know, we're a broadcast company, we're a media company. Telling stories is our superpower. The stories that we have been able to tell with Special Olympics, bar none are the best we've told. That's most important to me, I think.
And as you all may know, we do fundraising for cancer research under the V Foundation for cancer research. So, I'm going to put that one aside just a bit because I'm incredibly proud of that. The V is the second thing, which is we are helping to save people's lives. And I know not many CSR teams can say that. And yes, its six degrees from us, but everyone is going to be affected by cancer. There's a great book called The Emperor of All Maladies, which is about the history of cancer.
Our friends at Stand Up To Cancer actually did a documentary on it, and it literally says at the very end of the book, you may not die of cancer, but you die with cancer. Either one of your friends, or you, or your body is fighting it every single day. As an example, I think when we started the V back in 30 plus years ago, 90% of youth with leukemia were passing away. Now, 93% live longer lives and without cancer. That is a huge change. So, it is beatable. Those are the two things.
Carol Cone:
That's great. That's really, really good. And I know that access to sport and youth, and I know you talk... this is a very important point about strategy because you talk about when kids fall out of sports and they do a lot now at a very young age, they don't become sports fans.
Kevin Martinez:
So, first of all, I'm not a purist in this space and I get criticized for it. So, we don't operate. We're corporate giving. We're corporate CSR. We're not a charity. We're not a foundation. So, a major piece of my role is to enhance our business, to look for opportunities for other departments to benefit from the work that we do.
It's not self-dealing. It's about smart cause related building of programs. That's how we go at this. And so, one of the things that I think is most important as everyone should know, is kids are dropping out of sports at huge rates. The pandemic did not help.
But what's also important is that we know for a fact in research that we've done with Aspen Institute, our own research and others, the leagues as well, that if you're not in sports, if you're not participating in sports early on, then you're going to lose your capacity to be a sports fan. Well, if you're not a sports fan, what are you not doing? You're not watching our network. You're not participating.
Carol Cone:
Right, of course.
Kevin Martinez:
Play is the number one factor influencing later sports fandom. So, just being part of the play, whether it's unstructured play or play, and those who play are six times more likely to become an avid fan. So, if we can get them early, that's great, but parents are the number two reason influencing them.
Because if you go to your first Mets or New York Yankees game with your dad or your mom or your family, that is part of your social construct. It makes you a sports fan whether you're playing or not. And so, one of the things that I think is really important is that if we can get them to experience sports, then we are going to be able to create an avenue that is also going to return on investment for those individuals, as we say, to help kids create the futures that they imagine by experiencing sport.
Their parents, teachers and caring adults have allowed for this to happen. And then, of course, the courses, and they play T-Ball, and then they might be a statistician or they might want to be an ump or whatever it may be. But to experience that, allows us to be able to also get the benefits, the sound mind, sound body, sound soul that we know exists, leadership, any number of technical and functional skills. Those things are critical to us.
Carol Cone:
Sound mind, sound body, sound soul. So, you named this program as I understand, Don't Retire, Kid?
Kevin Martinez:
We did. So, we had a program that we launched with Aspen Institute and we got Kobe Bryant, our dear friend, as you know, everyone, one of the best amazing people. He got behind this in a major way and that Don't Retire, Kid, literally, we used resources to say why are kids dropping out of sports? And there were eight reasons and many of them people know.
But it could be cost, or safety, or no place to play, or coaching or some of the issues related to travel teams and specialization. We looked at all that stuff. And so, we did a really amazing program with Kobe and won some awards with the conversation around it. But the great news was it was the first time that we actually did a campaign on ESPN across all of our networks, and all of our partners, and most of our sponsors who got behind this because they all had a shared value in kids playing sports.
Carol Cone:
Kudos to you. That's why you had so many partners that are brilliant, so, so, so brilliant. I want to turn to a couple other things, which has to do with influencers, and I want to talk on also the crossover of influencers, and social issues, and women's equity and sport. And I have got to just... we've got to talk about Caitlin Clark. Have you met her, by the way, ever in your-
Kevin Martinez:
I have not. I have not.
Carol Cone:
I bet you want. And Coco Gauff, have you met her at all?
Kevin Martinez:
I have met Coco. I'm on the board of USTA, so I've been lucky enough to be her.
Carol Cone:
So, two women who I have watched, and then, everybody's explaining, well, it's the amount of money that's coming from the networks, et cetera, et cetera. Where do you believe we are right now in this day and age of women in sport, and also in just equity of opportunity and pay?
Kevin Martinez:
I'm going to back up a little bit. So, where we are, I want you to know we started that journey way, way before where we are right now. So, ESPN has committed itself to women's sports as no other sports media company has done, and we have been doing that for decades.
So, part of it is, is that we support NCAA sports to a high level and degree, which if you ever watched a women's softball game, you are going to see joy and competition you've never seen back in a stick and ball sport ever. It is the best. Also, my Washington Huskies are number eight.
Carol Cone:
All right.
Kevin Martinez:
But it is this beautiful sport. But volleyball, and gymnastics, and field hockey, we picked those up early because we also wanted to make sure we were living the values of Title IX, not just because of play, but actually telling the story. And it wasn't because of we had to have so many this and that or whatever.
It's because we also knew that women's sports fans serve the sports fan wherever they are. We had a substantial number of women's sports fans. We created ESPNW to help create energy and momentum. And I will tell you that the storyline of that with the Women's Sports Foundation, even Billie Jean King has told me that we have helped create that opportunity that exists for even that 70 plus thousand dollar salary to exist because we're buying those broadcast rights.
So, we were the first to buy WNBA because we believed it was critical to the sport of basketball, but also for women. And the sport was so amazing that could bring and draw. The great thing, and as you've referenced, the one thing we know tips the scale is that when you have a moment in time of a phenom in sports, you have to grab that and you have to tell that story like Simone Biles and others. But Caitlin is one of those, but there have been phenoms before, so let's be clear, substantial, amazing.
But it has brought a sense of male viewers coming to the female sports, not female audience, female sport, and loving it just much as they do the NCAA men's tournament. And that's the beauty of what's happening right now.
Carol Cone:
And what, the women's had 24 million views more than the men's this year.
Kevin Martinez:
Yeah.
Carol Cone:
And I heard that Nike is probably finishing a deal up with Caitlin. I heard there might be a shoe and I would even wear that shoe because if I could jump like that at a five foot one level, we could get more of our clients to agree to the great programmatic ideas, when I would sink that three pointer.
Kevin Martinez:
I hope they have Caitlin Clark's shoes for men.
Carol Cone:
Well, I hope they also have them for little kids because I know little girls are going to go crazy.
Kevin Martinez:
Oh my God. She's amazing.
Carol Cone:
You love the Olympics. I love the Olympics. It's going to be probably the only thing this summer that's going to be joyous to watch versus all the other news.
Kevin Martinez:
Yeah. So, I got to go about a year ago, and I got to do some pre-looking at some stuff that was really exciting in Paris. I think France has done an extraordinary amazing job of telling a story in their culture and their way that makes people want to know that this is just going to be different.
And so, even their marketing has been almost artistic in the way that they've talked about athletes, and athletes of course are artisans in how they use their bodies. I think the first thing I go to is making sure that in this world that we live in, that everyone is safe, and feel safe, and they can then have those experiences of sports.
But I also think the other piece here is the world in which we live in. This is me thinking as a CSR person, particularly in sports where there are organizations that are not being fair. There's doping going on, there's wars going on that they're using these political platforms.
And I am a true believer. I truly am, that I believe that the Olympics is this moment where all humanity comes together and celebrates. There're always some outliers, but the joy of watching and those athletes that have trained for a quadrinium or longer, this is the moment that we should all just be in awe of humanity doing the right thing.
Carol Cone:
Absolutely. I totally agree with that. So, we will look forward to that, and keep our fingers crossed that everything is safe, and that we see, again, the heart these athletes bring to it are just extraordinary. I would like to just ask you, in closing, we've covered a lot of ground. We've talked about superpowers, and scaling initiatives, and being very authentic. What haven't I asked you, Kevin Martinez?
Kevin Martinez:
Oh my gosh. I think, oh boy, you've been pretty inclusive of all the areas that I speak to or know of. I think the one question is where do we go from here as practitioners? My closest friends and the people I have learned most from in my space practitioners, I could not have done it alone.
I call my friends and say, hey, Karen Davis at Hasbro, Lauren Moore at Starbucks and Johnson & Johnson, Jackie Liao, who's working on a number of different things, everywhere, and everyone has always been so wonderful and gracious to be able to share, well, here's what I know, or here's what we're dealing with. And so, I guess my one hope is that we double down on that because I think we're at a time of contraction, not expansion.
And to know that in doing this, it's a hard job in respect that we bring this home. You cannot not bring it home because we're talking about trying to make the world a better place. And I think us all humans, we all do that no matter where we're at, or at least we hope, we're aspirational, and we're doing it. I think the difficulty is these times are so challenging that there's so many barriers and you carry those with you.
So, I would just say that fundamentally, I think to your question, what I recommend is to really truly understand that this role demands that you take oxygen in, breathe, come from it from a healthy mind and understand that you're going to get a lot wrong, but you're going to try to move forward and you're going to poke the bear every now and then.
And it's worth poking the bear, poke the bear. And so, I guess that's the most thing because I know a lot of my colleagues are incredibly like, "Oh my God, they're rolling back this and that and whatever, and how do we do this? And we're narrowing and we used to be so good." It's like, hold on, resilience, get you forward, but also take care of yourself in this space because it is essential that we have the good people doing this, continuing to keep doing it.
Carol Cone:
That's wonderful. That's wonderful advice. I want to ask another question, which is a segue from that. What do you see as the role of purpose in an AI-driven world?
Kevin Martinez:
What's happening right now is that there is a new technology like every two and a half to three years in transformative ways. So, we think AI is coming, but wait until quantum computing comes or wait until some other stuff comes.
Part of it is to make sure that in corporate responsibility, as our corporation uses the tools of technology, we should have a voice there. So, don't let anyone tell you you shouldn't have a voice here. It is absolutely instrumental because the issues of AI that exist right now, our privacy, transparency, truth, being able to identify what is real and not real, these are all elements that corporate responsibility should be incredibly part of.
As many of your listeners, and hopefully you know, we got into the role of, we licensed our brand to PENN Entertainment for a betting app. I was right in front of that line saying, I want to be about responsible gaming. I want to make sure my company knows that CSR should be engaged because we know who the players are, and we have this appetite, and this intuition about what responsibility looks like.
So, AI, I think, Carol, I'm on the outside of being an early adopter, so no matter what, it's going to be hard for me, but I do believe it's going to refresh the system, but there's going to be a lot of complications. People are talking about jobs, they're talking about, as I said, privacy and truth. And so, that's part of our responsibility.
Carol Cone:
Yeah. I love that you said that because it's like everybody's talking about God, it's just going to transform and make things faster, et cetera. But to your point about there should be, I know that there's been bringing these companies together about the ethics of AI and such. There really should be at the table, and it's not just one person.
It's probably a group of people because you're going to have to really stand your ground about is this ethical? How do we deal with the truth? How do we deal with deep fakes? This goes to the core of what it means to be a responsible company and a responsible technology.
Kevin Martinez:
I guess the other thing I would say is you got to dance with the people who brought it to the dance. So, there's things are changing so quickly. Let's remember that there's a lot of energy and knowledge in the past that can be translated to where we're going in the future. And that's not about ageism or anything. It's just like we collectively drop wisdom off in package it as we move forward, and we need to bring it with us. So, let's remember to do that.
Carol Cone:
Bring our wisdom with us. So, thank you so much, Kevin. It's been a great conversation and we keep looking to ESPN just to bring us incredible sports of all different types anytime and anywhere.
Kevin Martinez:
Thank you so much. I appreciate this time. And thank you for all your leadership in this space.
Carol Cone:
This podcast was brought to you by some amazing people, and I'd love to thank them. Anne Hundertmark and Kristin Kenney at Carol Cone On Purpose, Pete Wright and Andy Nelson, our crack production team at TruStory FM, and you, our listener, please rate and rank us because we really want to be as high as possible as one of the top business podcasts available so that we can continue exploring together the importance and the activation of authentic purpose. Thanks so much for listening.
This transcript was exported on Apr 25, 2024 - view latest version here.
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