GANABANMelbourne, Australia · After carsales.com.au
Visual Entertainment Group & McGuire Media
I took the job to run the AFL's Name-a-Game program. I didn't realise until I was in the door that one of the business's partners was Eddie McGuire.
A career break, then something enjoyable
After leaving carsales.com.au, I took a multi-month career break. When I came back, I was looking for something I'd genuinely enjoy rather than another corporate ladder, and landed a highly autonomous role at Visual Entertainment Group, running sportsdelivered.com and the AFL's Name-a-Game program on behalf of the AFL: personalised copies of broadcast AFL games, sold first on VHS and then DVD, of your team winning (or your favourite moment) with your name on it. It wasn't until I was already in the door that I found out one of the business's partners was Eddie McGuire, via his company McGuire Media.
Growing it into a real operation
Name-a-Game sales grew enough that I needed to build out a small fulfilment team of three or four people, including my sister, to keep up with orders as they came in. It meant riding out the shift from VHS to DVD in real time, and running a genuinely operational small business inside a larger media partnership: sales, production, fulfilment and customer service, all under one program.
At a glance
- Company
- Visual Entertainment Group, in partnership with Eddie McGuire's McGuire Media
- Products
- sportsdelivered.com and the AFL's Name-a-Game program: personalised copies of broadcast AFL games
- Format
- Started on VHS, moved to DVD as the format shifted
- Team
- Grew to three to four fulfilment staff, including my sister
- What followed
- This work led directly into video production and marketing for the Legends Football League Australia
Why it matters
This is the chapter where sports media replaced corporate structure as the thing I was building around, and where the production and fulfilment skills from Name-a-Game carried straight into the next chapter: Legends Football League Australia and the Ladies Gridiron League.