What happens when you turn your dad into a creator?
Creator Conversation with Alyssa Cronin of "Kickball Dad"
Thank you all so much for the support during last week’s launch! Amazing to see the excitement and interest around creator marketing - Hyped to have you all along for the ride. I’m still working on polishing the newsletter (actual logo, more digestible formatting, etc.) so appreciate all the feedback thus far.
Welcome to “Creator Conversations,” a weekly feature on Paid Partnership where I interview a prominent creator, agent, marketer or industry professional to discuss wide-ranging topics from outreach to negotiation to content.
Phil Dunphy. Chandler Bing. The Internet’s Dad.
Whatever you want to call him, Kickball Dad (KBD) is here to PLAY - every sport imaginable with a smile on his face. The accessible, mic’d up content of Kickball Dad continues to resonate with millions of followers across social media due to its relatability, humor and catchphrases (“lookitup”). From bird watching to Sphere watching, KBD does it all.
Behind the talent, there’s always a brain - Enter daughter, Alyssa Cronin. Alyssa is one of the brightest young minds in the creator economy, running her dads’s entire creator career (agent, manager, filmer, editor and more) while holding down her daytime job running social media at Baked By Melissa, one of the premiere cupcake and dessert operations.
I got to catch up with Alyssa to chat:
How brands can improve their experiential creator activations
What she looks for in a brand partnership
KBD’s dream collaboration
Costco Cinematic Universe (CCU)
And more!
Neil: I’d love to chat experiential creator activations as you all have attended nearly every sporting event possible (Super Bowl, NHL & MLS All-Star Weekends, many Miami Dolphins & New Jersey Devils games in between). From your creator perspective, what’s the recipe for a great event and awesome content?
Alyssa: Having a dedicated person or team that is thinking creator-first is so valuable. The people in these roles are probably already consuming content from creators that would be natural fits for the events their brand or league is hosting.
Perfect example – I think you discovered Kickball Dad through consuming our content on your own because we were making organic content about hockey before we ever partnered with NHL. That’s often how our favorite (and most successful) partnerships come to be. We’ve been making football and soccer videos since the early days of Kickball Dad, and we’ve gotten to work with the Miami Dolphins, MLS, and Premier League as a result. Last year, Bounty Paper Towels sent us to the Super Bowl, which was surreal. We had never worked with them before, but the campaign manager said we immediately came to mind for the pitch, since she had been watching our videos throughout the NFL season and knew we’d be a great fit. They loved our content and trusted us to use our usual unscripted approach. That's one of the most rewarding parts of content creation – knowing that our favorite teams, leagues, and brands are recognizing the work we’ve been doing for years and realizing we’d make great partners to promote their tentpole events.
In all of these cases, the partners were so chill about coming up with concepts (if we even had to submit a concept at all). It’s always funny when brands ask me to send them a detailed script ahead of a project when the whole draw of our content is that it’s always just my dad genuinely being himself. That's how this whole thing started – Kickball Dad is not an actor, he's just a dad, and that's why people love watching him. The best partnerships come from brands trusting us to do what we do. That's the unique value in partnering with creators. We already know how to create content that our audiences love to watch, so we’ll incorporate your brand in a way that meets your goals and entertains our viewers. Hire creators you already love and give them the freedom to create content that’s authentic to them - everybody wins.
Neil: How does it feel to have some new BOOM-sized entrants into the Costco content ring that Kickball Dad may or may not have been at the forefront of?
Alyssa: We actually ran into the Costco Guys at a Yankees game over the summer which was classic. I was confused, because I heard these kids saying “That's the Costco dad from TikTok!” but they were pointing in the wrong direction. I was thinking “No, the Costco dad from TikTok is right here.” Turns out they were pointing at none other than Big Boom AJ, who happened to be in our section, which was just wild. Those same kids eventually turned around and said “Wait, Kickball Dad's here too? No way! Both Costco Dads in one section!” Kickball Dad and Big AJ then bonded over the Costco double chocolate chunk cookies. From there, my brother and I had to try and explain the Costco Guys phenomenon to our 59-year-old father. He remains confused to this day.
Neil: What an unreal, organic moment in the great CCU (Costco Cinematic Universe).
Alyssa: If Jimmy Fallon ever wants to dive deeper into the CCU on The Tonight Show, Kickball Dad is available.
Neil: What’s your dream event to attend? 2026 World Cup Final?
Alyssa: This is a tough one. We went to the Super Bowl and Sesame Street last year – how do you top those? 2026 World Cup Final is absolutely on the bucket list. We’re manifesting a Devils Stanley Cup and a Dolphins Super Bowl too. But I also can't imagine the stress of watching those high stakes games and filming – my camera might be shaking the whole time.
Going to the Grammys would be cool too. Maybe Kickball Dad will be nominated for “Best Solo Pop Performance on a Lawnmower” someday.
Neil: This is the place you're going to put it out for the world.
Alyssa: It’s my dad’s dream to meet Elton John, so I have to figure out how to make that happen. Meeting Messi is also on his bucket list (obviously).
Neil: Is there anything you look for in a collaboration nowadays? I know you probably have a lot of inbound requests…
Alyssa: You know, just a high rate… [laughs] Just kidding, I respect our audience and want them to be entertained and find value and entertainment in whatever we're putting out into the world, so we assess potential partnerships with that goal in mind. It also has to be a brand/product that my dad actually likes and that is in line with his lifestyle. Our audience knows what he’s passionate about, so we always aim to stay on-brand and center our sponsored content around those things. Going out into the world for sporting events and experiences is the best because we love a new video setting, we’re huge sports fans and these opportunities suit our unscripted content style so well. When the assignment is “go to the NHL draft and make a fun video of your weekend” that's the best because my dad’s just going to have a great time, I'm going to have fun capturing it and then it makes for a great video. Kickball Dad fans love spotting him in the wild too, so it’s always fun to connect with our community in real life at these events.
There are also times I'll get the email and think there’s no way we’re going to say yes. Then later, I’ll revisit it and send it in the family group chat for other opinions, and we reconsider. It's always fun to see what our possibilities are and it can also be a fun challenge to step outside of our comfort zones (although I did make Kickball Dad turn down a skydiving event because our comment sections are constantly imploring me to “protect him at all costs”). Sometimes, if it is something that doesn't necessarily seem like a perfect fit, we find a way to make it our own and then it ends up being a great video.
We also handle all of our own partnerships from the first conversations right down to execution and payment, so we look for good partners. We end up getting new inbound offers from a lot of agencies and brands that we’ve worked with on past campaigns, so we always consider what those past experiences were like and try to be great partners to them, too. There are some awesome agencies and campaign managers that we’ve built great relationships with and that understand who we are and what kind of content we make, so we’re always paying attention to that aspect as well. We want to work with people and teams that are great collaborators and value that long-term relationship building element as much as we do.
Neil: What are your goals with KBD for 2025? (Follow the trend of creators trying to lean into YouTube? Go full time with your dad? Etc.)
Alyssa: We're not big goal setters. Since we both still work corporate jobs, we don't like to make this feel like work (even though it's very much a lot of work). We want it to stay fun. I think that not having as much of a plan has served us well so far, because what we're doing has always been very genuine. It's what pops in my inbox, what we run into in real life and whatever we feel like doing over the weekend. It's been fun to turn whatever we find ourselves doing into content. Somehow, we ended up sitting in the pit box at a NASCAR race over the summer for a partnership. Stuff like that, we look at each other and we're like, “how did we get here?”
I remember sitting in the stands at the Super Bowl last year thinking “How is this real life? How did this happen?”
We’re also always aspiring to make our audience feel good when they watch our content, so we definitely want to do more to give back this year – beyond just giving people a laugh while they’re doomscrolling. We’ve had conversations with St. Jude, NHL Foundation and Audobon Society, so we’re hopeful that some of those partnerships will come to life this year and we can bring some more positivity to the internet.
Neil: Melissa Ben-Ishay, the founder of Baked by Melissa, has recently jumped all in on creator content herself - Publishing selfie style cooking tutorials across IG and TikTok. What role do you play in supporting her as a creator and does your expertise from managing other talent come into play?
Alyssa: Melissa’s salads were actually popping up on my For You Page before I started working for her. I interviewed for this job the summer of 2022 which is right when Kickball Dad started, too. The final interview was with Melissa herself, and I remember thinking “Oh my gosh, that's Melissa, in her kitchen where she shoots her TikToks!” It was so cool. I think Kickball Dad had like 20,000 followers at the time, so I mentioned [becoming more of a creator], and she was like, “Oh, I'll have to check that out.” I got the job and now I spend a lot of time in that kitchen creating content with her.
I got that job because I understood what she was doing on TikTok. I had worked in brand social before, which is also an important part, but to understand the creator aspect of things is so important and unique, too. I liked that the job bridged those two things.
I’ve learned so much from my role with Baked by Melissa that I've applied to building out Kickball Dad. Before Kickball Dad landed a brand deal, I was working on sponsored content with Melissa. Since I’m so immersed in this space now, working with Melissa as a creator is my favorite part of my job.