Show #200 – Tom Knuppel Featured on Episode 200 of the Knup Sports Show

RYAN KNUPPEL

Hey, what’s up everybody? Ryan Knuppel here, Knup Sports Show Grand Episode #200. I’m super, super excited for Episode 200, I know I’ve been leading up to this number. It’s kinda weird how we, like, we look at numbers and we make these milestones or whatever. It’s just another show, right? But, hey, we celebrated at 100, we’re celebrating now at 200. Who knows if we’ll get to 300, but we’re having a lot of fun with this show, so thank you for tuning in, giving us your support, and being a part of this simple show that really started as nothing more than, “Hey, I wanna talk to people in the industry, I wanna hear what they’re up to,”, and it’s really turned into something really fun and special. So, I’ve been planning for months on who I was gonna bring on for Episode 200, tryna think of any of the biggest names in the industry, in iGaming, in sports business, in all of the above, and I kept falling back to one name, and he may not necessarily be, um, in sports business, he may not necessarily be in iGaming, but he really is at the core of what he does, and that’s none other than my father, my dad, Tom Knuppel. I’m super excited to bring him on today. He’s been a big part of everything that happens at Knup Sports, way behind the scenes stuff that goes on with Knup Sports and Knup Solutions, and everything we do. So I have my dad on here to really just celebrate Episode 200. Let’s bring Tom on and talk from there. What’s going, Dad?

TOM KNUPPEL

Hey, thanks for having me Ryan. It’s like you’re dumbing down your show today, huh?

RYAN KNUPPEL

[Laughs]. I guess so, I mean, it’s, you know, Episode 200, I can’t believe we got here. That’s a lot of time doing these shows, but thank you for spending a few minutes and chatting with me.

TOM KNUPPEL

I have all kinds of minutes right now.

RYAN KNUPPEL

I mean, living the retired life, right? The retired life.

TOM KNUPPEL

Oh, yeah. It’s great.

RYAN KNUPPEL

You got all the time in the world. So, so, you know, we kind of have a format with this show, so we’ll kind of stick by it, but I’m sure we’ll bounce all over with this, but I think the audience would love to hear a little bit about your background, um, you know, I know it’s not the traditional background in iGaming and sports business, but maybe give us a little bit about your background and what led you into the passion that you have for sports.

TOM KNUPPEL

Okay, well, um, I was the youngest of six kids and none of them except for one that was 15 years older than I was was interested in sports. So, a little bit different club growing up and not having any playmates, but one of them would come back and we’d play wiffle ball, and do some things like that. Um, I was always interested, I’d go outside and hit rocks with my baseball bat and I’d shoot hoops, and those kinds of things. It really fired me up because I actually got pretty good at most of those things, and as a high schooler I was pretty good, so those days are well gone, but anyway, I loved sports, it was a real big passion. My grandfather was a Cardinals fan, and he was a depot agent, and he used to take the train from where he was to St. Louis like every Sunday, just hop the train, and I became a Cardinals fan.

RYAN KNUPPEL

That’s awesome. So, you loved to play sports, you loved to watch sports, you follow it all, but what’s interesting is somehow over the years, you know, as we started getting into this more techy, digital era of websites and all this stuff online, you became, like, an online influencer/creator because you’ve had, I mean, I would say you’ve written, I don’t know, you may know a number, but tens of thousands of blog posts and articles and things across hundreds of sites over the last maybe 15 years or so. What brought you into that mindset, or that, I guess, what sparked that passion for you, to pull sports into online?

TOM KNUPPEL

Well, [inaudible], I was a school teacher, and I did a lot of coaching and stuff like that, so my sports interest was there, but then I became an English teacher, and English teachers do writing and read stuff, and edit all the time, and so that’s where the writing came, and once you got into the business I got excited about it, and decided that I’m just gonna write what I want to write, you know, I didn’t have any real rhyme or reason, I got all my things here, I got my baseball, I got football, I got hockey news, I got everything here, I just followed it and wanted to write about it.

RYAN KNUPPEL

That always fascinated me, you know every time I come over to you guys, to your house, it’s just, your whole desk is covered with magazines and papers and written scratch-ups of notes you took that you’re getting ready to write a blog post about something or another, and so that level of research that you do kind of goes unseen, but it’s something you obviously enjoy.

TOM KNUPPEL

Yeah, I do. In fact, there are these sports that you guys cover that I got more interested in than I ever did before, such as horse racing. I really became a horse racing fan, I really enjoyed that. I did boxing for a while, and I couldn’t sustain that, I wasn’t a big boxing fan, but, yeah, I got sports I’d never thought I’d follow or read about that, it’s a sport.

RYAN KNUPPEL

That’s right. And for those of you listening that don’t really, can’t put it all together, so we own a content agency, and we really create tons of sports content for all sports of brands in the industry, and so once we really dove into that 6-10 years ago, whatever year that was, my dad really took a liking to some of these, especially the sports that we didn’t have a ton of writers for, and it really helped, uh, I don’t know, just helped keep the pulse on some of those, and did a lot of editing behind the scenes. I can’t count the number of times I would get a message of, “Hey, did you know you screwed this up?” or “Hey, did you see this article? It was a little off.” And so, you know, usually my dad would find something and we’d go fix it and edit and go from there, but an extra pair of eyes is always good.

TOM KNUPPEL

Yep, that’s what I’m good at, I guess. As a school teacher, you had to do those things, and I retired, like, 11 years ago, so, gotta keep sharp at something.

RYAN KNUPPEL

That’s right. And one thing you’ve done over the years, and I wanna hear a little bit about this, but you’ve done…You like to read, obviously being an ex-teacher and all of the above, um, and you started taking those books and turning them into book reviews out on KnupSports.com, and I’m pulling that up, actually, as we talk here, but you’ve done, I think I counted over 125 of these books reviews that are published. Now, they’re nothing, I mean, they’re not like thousands of words long, but it’s your honest take and your honest review on a lot of these books. I mean, did you just enjoy that, I mean, do you enjoy reading and writing about it? Tell us a little bit about that process and just what that all came about from.

TOM KNUPPEL

Yeah, well I had a connection with the University of Nebraska Press, and they would, they would send me books in return for an honest and a fair book review. I mean, these books hadn’t been published yet, they were coming, so I would get them maybe a month ahead of time, and I enjoyed reading them. As I get older, it’s even harder, though. But I enjoyed reading them, and finding the things I like about them and the things I didn’t like about them and putting them in words, and published those book reviews. I enjoyed that. For a long time I did it really fast, and I kinda slowed down on that. I mean, I was doing three a week, and they, I can’t do that now.

RYAN KNUPPEL

And now you’ve got a full library of books.

TOM KNUPPEL

Oh, yeah. Over here on my left, whole library full of books, and…but I enjoy that too. I like to look at those and…

RYAN KNUPPEL

Yeah. That’s a really cool thing, and as you can see, I’m scrolling here, going through some of these. Some of these are a blast from the past that I remember you reading and going through. So, for those of you listeners that are interested in books and sports in particular, come out here, check out some of these or do a quick search and see if you’ve actually read any of these, or maybe there’ll be something that Tom will encourage you to read, or not encourage if there was any bad reviews because it was honest reviews.

TOM KNUPPEL

Yes, and if there’s any writers out there, and they want their book reviewed, they can send them to me, and I’ll read it and write a review for them.

RYAN KNUPPEL

There you go. Awesome. Awesome. So yeah, KnupSports.com, lots of book reviews. Oh man, like, just tons of content. It’s been awesome. So, I mean, looking forward, you know, I know you’ve kind of slowed down with the writing a little bit, and I know personally that you have a little bit, man, I don’t see it ever going away from your mentality, but what’s it look like? Do you wanna continue creating content and being a part of websites, or what?

TOM KNUPPEL

Well, I do, but I get this feeling every once in a while that I probably should be done, and, you know, I sit here a while and I don’t write for a week, and I’m like “What am I doing with my time?”. I’m just messing around, and so I’ve started back into writing and doing some college football now, because next season, it’s big, so I gotta get started on that. But yeah, I’m gonna keep doing it. It’s gonna be slower than my other pace, but…

RYAN KNUPPEL

Yeah, that’s amazing. So, let’s shift gears a little bit because you mentioned the Cardinals in the beginning and I wanted to make sure I really touched on the Cardinals because I would consider that, you know, just from the outside looking in, your biggest team passion, for sure. Um, and so, you know, over the years you’ve done CardinalsGM.com, which had a number of blogs, it’s still out there, I know you’re not doing a ton on it now, but you also did HistoryofCardinals.com, which was years, and years, and years of work that you put together all the history around the Cardinals, a little bit on St. Louis sports. Tell us a little bit about that and how you brought your love for the Cardinals online as well.

TOM KNUPPEL

Well, CardinalsGM was my first passion, and it turned into some good stuff. We got some notice from the Cardinals and they would invite us down to their, one of the games, and they’d talk to us, and they wanted us to write about their stuff, and that was good. And then I did the HistoryofCardinals, and like you said, it took a lot of time, and it’s there for everyday of the year. I mean, you want to know what was going on today in history with the Cardinals1? It’s there. HistoryofCardinals.com, and yeah, I just write about anything related to the Red Birds, and it was really hard here, earlier in the year when they were bad. You know, I wrote one, “Are They Really That Bad?”, and maybe I shouldn’t have wrote that one, but they were, they were really, you know, they really were that bad for a while. Getting better.

RYAN KNUPPEL

Yeah, for sure. So, as you can see here on HistoryofCardinals, I mean, every day, and, you know, we didn’t spend any time on design. We’re not designers, we’re, like, content people, and so the designs out here, and we have everything here, but let’s go to May 17th and just see what the heck happened on this day of Cardinals History, May 17th. This is really cool, you put this together probably years ago, but it still stands the test of time with all of these little tidbits that happened, Musial hits his 475th on May 17th, so really cool stuff, some Cardinal birthdays on this day debuts, um, and then, obviously deaths as well. But, really cool that you can go to any day in Cardinal history and see what’s going on.

TOM KNUPPEL

Yeah, it was a love of labor, it really was. I enjoyed doing it, I’m glad I did it, I’m probably needing to re-up and do some things, but…

RYAN KNUPPEL

Now you’re glad you’re done, right? [Laughs].

TOM KNUPPEL

Yep. I’m done.

RYAN KNUPPEL

Yep, yep. Well, cool. Well, okay. I always ask for, typically I ask for business advice for, you know, other CEOs or other people in this space, but now I want to shift it a little bit and ask just for life advice, because you’ve been in life for a long time, you’ve been around, you’ve seen everything in sports, you’ve seen everything in business, you’ve seen everything on a family side. Maybe talk to, you know, the entrepreneur or the CEO that’s watching this, that has a family, that’s trying to balance sports and doing all of the above. I don’t know, give them some of your best life advice on how they can manage all of that, or maybe what to do or what not to do. I don’t know, maybe something pops into your head that you have there.

TOM KNUPPEL

Well, follow your passion. If it’s really what you love, stick to it, it’s not gonna happen quickly. You’re gonna have mistakes, and you’re gonna have some success, but just keep going. Don’t quit too early, otherwise you’re gonna be going through four or five things in a year. Just go slowly, and remember your family. Family is an important issue. I enjoy doing it, I got three boys, and keeping them busy all the time. I can remember when Ryan was little, we’d go to the gym all the time, and just stay with your family too, follow your passion in sports, and your job, just keep doing it.

RYAN KNUPPEL

Great advice, great advice from a great man. So, Dad, I really appreciate you being on here today. Any last words, anything you wanted to say? I know this was short and sweet, but listen, I mean, this was what I wanted. I wanted to celebrate Episode 200 with you. Man, any stories, anything else we want to talk about before we get off here?

TOM KNUPPEL

No, I’ve probably watched 175 of these episodes, and half the time I send you a message and say “What the heck were they talking about?”. But people should be able to understand this one, I think. So…

RYAN KNUPPEL

Yeah, that’s right. Especially when we start talking NFTs and tech and all this stuff, you’re like, “I have no idea what that interview was about.”

TOM KNUPPEL

Exactly. I mean, I do, I really, I have learned a lot by watching them, but I do wonder a lot of times, “What in the world?” [inaudible].

RYAN KNUPPEL

Yep, it’s funny how the world changes fast, you know, and what’s important, and the lingo people talk in, especially in the business world.

TOM KNUPPEL

Yeah. People need to slow down a little bit.

RYAN KNUPPEL

Yeah. Very good advice there as well. Alright, well I wont keep you any longer. You got a lot to do there in Illinois, right?

TOM KNUPPEL

Oh yeah, at least it’s nice when you get outside, it is.

RYAN KNUPPEL

Alright, well I really appreciate you spending some time here, and you know, who knows? We’ll see if we can have you on on Episode 400 when we get to that.

TOM KNUPPEL

Oh, my…well thanks for having me. A little bit of a surprise.

RYAN KNUPPEL

Alright, well, thank you. We’ll talk to you soon.

TOM KNUPPEL

Thanks, Ryan.

RYAN KNUPPEL

Alright, that was Tom Knuppel, my dad, my father, we’ll call him the grandfather of Knup Sports. I don’t know what you wanna call him, but he’s, as you heard, hopefully you enjoyed that. He’s been a lifelong sports fan, played sports, was a part of sports, taught me sports. Ah, man, so just awesome to have him on, and kinda share some of that, I guess, what we’ve done together over the years, because name never comes up in any of it, and so for you guys to all see a little bit behind the scenes of what he’s done and contributed to all of this is amazing, so. Because this show and our business wouldn’t be here without him. Alright, I hope you enjoyed that. That was Episode 200, celebration. We’re not gonna stop at that, though. We have 201 coming out right after this, already recorded and ready to go, and we’ll continue to go forward. So, if you know anyone that wants to be on this show, we typically feature CEOs and startups, and all these people that are in the sports business and iGaming world, so please let me know. Ryan Knuppel, you’ll find me out on any social and we can go from there. Alright, stay safe, talk to you soon. Have a great one, and enjoy those sports. Alright, bye-bye.

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