About CWS

My Background

If you’ve stumbled across this page, hi there! I’m Chandler. Everyone calls me Chandler With Sports. Seriously, that’s my name in people’s contacts. I’m like The Stig from Top Gear. We both like anonymity and privacy. I’m just not as skilled around cars as him. Or I’m like Eric Matthews’ character on Boy Meets World, Plays With Squirrels: Quirky, but smarter. Whatever the comparison, an intro page won’t explain who I am. It takes some time to get to know me. 

The name came from middle school, the principal wanted to introduce me as I did sports reports over the morning announcements (hence the name of the company). The name has stuck and that hasn’t changed (and it won’t). No, the nickname is not to fit an ego or anything like that. I do my best to be humble in everything I say and do. I figured I would address that first because people have thought that in the past and it is simply not true. 

At SR, I am the Founder and Sports Director, but I don’t believe in being defined by titles; I believe in being defined by how I live out those titles. At the end of the day, I am focused on how I interact with our team members, how I engage with our community and how I can promote sports in a positive way. I may be the boss, but I do not want to be seen as one of those “Type-A” bosses who is a perfectionist. I want to focus on building people up, enjoying my craft and growing something unique. A few other things to know about me:

• I’ve covered sports since I was 5 (so, going on 19 years now). From SportsCenter type reports to play-by-play broadcasting to simple write-ups of a game, I’ve covered sports from a lot of angles. Sports are my passion and I want to follow my dreams of being involved in the sports world.

• While in high school, I was a part of one of the leading high school sports networks in the country. There I learned a lot about how to be an effective journalist without having a bias towards one side. It’s the reason SR will be a Sports Analytics company, not a Sports Media company. We will have elements of both, but analytics will be our main focus.

• We do not want to provide up-to-the-minute information you can find anywhere else. We want to take the time to digest the information and deliver insights to anyone who wants to learn more about sports.

• I started this company because I love numbers. At the same time, my best friend and I wanted to find more things in common. I started Sport Report with the idea of simplifying sports for him (as he did not know sports that well). It then had a betting angle. That was a bad idea. I lost $500, destroyed my friendship with him (someone who was like a brother to me), and lost who I was as a human being. I started a nightly podcast where I didn’t really sleep much for 8 months, in an effort to find myself. Now, we’ve ditched our gambling roots and traded them for unbiased sports reporting.

• I like sports trivia and I look at the stats from the previous night’s games when I get up in the morning (our friends at Sports Reference help with that). 

• I graduated from the University of Colorado with a major in communications and a minor in history (that degree included a lot of writing) and I also have a Graduate Certificate in Sports Analytics and Management from American University. 

• I want to inspire people by doing what we do every day: By being unique, neutral, and honest. I also tend to be outspoken and a non-conformist. 

• Mike & Mike inspired me to get into sports, Jon Stewart inspired me to have fun. I want to find a way to combine both of those elements into everything we do.

• At the end of the day, analytics is about raising questions. Analytics are designed to find insights that allow data statisticians (or casual fans) to explore and answer those questions.

• If you want to help SR in some way, I’m always open to listening to ideas, so feel free to reach out via the Contact Us page.

Hopefully over the coming months, you’ll find that we want to provide you with unique insights so you can be more informed about sports. It will not always be analytics. There will be things we do in the future that are not analytics. Those are projects for the future. For now, we will start with covering sports with an analytical spin. Then we will build off what we started and go from there.

I’m Chandler With Sports and I approve this message 😉