Nate Thomas | From BattleBots to Vertical Microsports: The Vertical Buzz S3E10

What happens when you build a sport specifically for the way people watch entertainment today? 📱🏆

This week on The Vertical Buzz, Buzz sits down with Nate Thomas, President and co-founder of World 1 Championship, to explore the creation of MicroSports and why the future of sports may be built vertically from the ground up.

Nate is a veteran television producer who has created and produced more than 1,000 hours of programming, including BattleBots and Netflix's Hyperdrive, with previous stops at Merv Griffin Entertainment and Mark Cuban's HDNet. Now he's applying everything he's learned about television, live entertainment, competition, and storytelling to a completely new kind of sports property.

From redefining what it means to be the fastest person in the world to creating a new test for the strongest, World 1 is designing competitions that can be understood, produced, and consumed in about 30 seconds.

And there's a bigger idea behind it: MicroSports. Sports created for the phone, built vertically from the beginning, and designed to turn the highlight itself into the event. 📲

In this episode, you will learn:

🏆 How Nate went from driving Merv Griffin to producing BattleBots and working with Mark Cuban

🤖 Why BattleBots succeeded when it was reframed as a legitimate sport

📱 Why World 1 is building sports specifically for vertical video

⚡ How the World 1 Speed Chamber will determine the fastest person in the world

💪 How the Bench Squat Max could redefine the strongest person in the world

🎥 Why 30 seconds may be the sweet spot for MicroSports