Building Winning Teams with Craig Custance – Part 1 (Ep. 36)

What drives a successful team? In this episode, John and Alex Soutsos discuss the fascinating world of sports leadership and team-building with Craig Custance, head of creative development at The Athletic. Tune in as they explore insights from Craig’s book on building winning teams, featuring behind-the-scenes stories from renowned hockey organizations and executives like Lou Lamoriello. Discover what makes great team leaders tick and how industries beyond sports can take a leaf out of their playbook. Craig discusses: (01:28) His journey from ESPN to building The Athletic  (06:35) Critical decision-making and the importance of learning from leaders like Lou Lamoriello  (15:46) Why some teams get stuck in a perpetual rebuild  (23:08) Effective ownership structures in sports  (25:33) The impact of general managers and what sets the best executives apart from their peers And more Resources: The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams by Craig Custance Connect with Med-Wealth Financial Services:  Med-Wealth Financial Services LinkedIn: John Soutsos LinkedIn: Alex Soutsos LinkedIn: Med-Wealth Financial Services Twitter: Med-Wealth Financial Services [email protected] 905-568-2000 1- 888-568-1170 Connect with Craig Custance: Craig Custance LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-custance/ Email: [email protected] X: @CraigCustance About Our Guest:  Craig Custance is the Head of Creative Development at The Athletic, a New York Times company. Previously, he was an Editorial Director at The Athletic, where he oversaw the NHL, college football and baseball coverage. As a writer, he spent over a decade as an NHL insider at The Athletic, ESPN and Sporting News. His latest book, The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams was released by Simon and Schuster in October 2024. He is also the author of the book Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey’s Greatest Coaches. Before joining The Athletic, Custance was a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine, ESPN.com and ESPN Insider. He was hired by ESPN after three years as a national hockey writer for The Sporting News. Custance got his start in journalism at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he was hired in 1999. At the AJC, Custance was part of the Innovations department where he helped launch the newspaper’s digital sports coverage. He also worked on the sports desk as a writer where he covered football, sports enterprise and ultimately became the Atlanta Thrashers beat writer. He left the AJC in 2008 after nearly a decade working for the newspaper. He’s a graduate of Michigan State University with a degree in journalism and lives in Clinton Township, Michigan with his wife Cassie and three children.