The NBA draft lottery has a tanking problem, and one new idea may offer a better balance.

Nick Elam talks with bestselling author and ICF certified coach Scott Doyne about sports media innovation, his years at Turner Sports, NASCAR digital products, March Madness on Demand, league partnerships, career transitions, and his book Navigating the Quarter Life Career Crisis. Scott shares why relationships matter in sports business and how career pivots often begin with one clear realization.

The innovation segment features Dr. TJ Haley of LaSalle University, along with students Tana Duncan and Ilya Volkov, explaining the COLA draft mechanism. The concept aims to help struggling NBA teams without rewarding losses. Then the next to last segment revisits a moving scene from Traffic, the 2000 film about the war on drugs and small victories that still matter.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why career change often starts before the layoff or crisis

• How Turner Sports approached fan first digital innovation

• Why the NBA draft lottery keeps creating tanking incentives

• How COLA could help weak teams without rewarding losses

• What Traffic reveals about small victories inside impossible systems

Episode Highlights:

• 00:00 Episode preview

• 03:10 Scott Doyne joins

• 06:30 Turner Sports and fan access

• 13:50 Sports data and relationships

• 18:40 Career transition stages

• 25:20 Quarter life career crisis

• 32:40 COLA draft mechanism

• 52:10 Traffic and small victories

Guest:

Scott Doyne is an ICF certified coach, bestselling author, and former Turner Sports executive. His work focuses on career transition, sports media innovation, leadership, and helping people navigate midlife and quarter life career change.

Tools, Frameworks, or Strategies Mentioned:

• Realize, explore, articulate, execute: Scott Doyne’s four stage framework for navigating career transition.

• Navigating the Quarter Life Career Crisis: Scott’s book focused on Gen Z, early career stress, comparison pressure, and practical next steps.

• Squiggly Careers: A career concept referenced by Scott that challenges the idea of a straight line professional path.

• Race Buddy: A NASCAR digital product from Turner Sports that gave fans additional ways to follow races and drivers.

• March Madness on Demand: A digital sports viewing innovation that gave fans more control over which NCAA Tournament games they watched.

• COLA draft mechanism: The carryover lottery allocation concept designed to reduce NBA tanking while still helping struggling teams.

• Playoff track record: The COLA principle of using postseason history instead of regular season losses to identify struggling teams.

• McCarty COLA: A COLA variant that ties lottery ticket increments to wins and drought length to create a positive incentive to win.

• Good idea scale: Nick’s recurring evaluation lens for judging whether a sports innovation is practical, useful, and worth adopting.

• Next to last segment: Sports Rule Pod’s recurring segment that revisits the overlooked moment before a famous ending.

Additional info about the COLA Draft Mechanism can be found here: ⁠NBA Tanking Is Solvable: Four Candidates - T.J. Highley⁠

or here: ⁠NBA Draft: Simple COLA Ends Tanking

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