2018 SoBros Awards: The Nominees for the “Friend of the Brand” Award

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It’s SoBros Awards season, y’all! A few weeks ago, we announced the nominees for our first award of the season, the 2018 Upstanding Gentleman’s Trophy. We have a few more in the pipeline that we’ll be announcing over the next couple of weeks. But today, we’re announcing another award new for 2018: The SoBros “Friend of the Brand” Award!

The reality is that we can’t build what we’re trying to build on our own. SoBros Network is a group effort, but we’ve also been fortunate enough to work with some other creators who have given us a nice little push outside of the SoBros umbrella. This is our way of recognizing those companies or individuals, and thanking them for the work they’ve put in alongside us this year.

Of course, the actual trophy is going to say something like, “excellence in excellence” or something. I mean, who wants a trophy for being someone’s friend? What does that prove, right?

Anyway, on to the nominees….

Jake Arthur

Jake and I go way back to my early days in writing….the Pro Football Spot days. He was always there when I needed a hand with something, and when I decided to walk away from all of my other writing gigs in 2017, solely to focus on SoBros Network, he was nothing but supportive. That relationship stayed intact, which is something that can’t always be said when you walk away from a gig, and earlier this year, Jake was generous enough to hop on an episode of SoBros Sports Night with me to cover the NFL Draft. But, it’s not just about the relationship or creating content together – Jake’s a great writer. His years of work were rewarded earlier this year when the Indianapolis Colts brought him onboard to write for Colts.com. So, shout out to Jake for the big year!

Has Been Sports

Ahhhhhh, those Has Been guys. Real salt of the Earth, they are. They’ve really hit their stride with Nashville SC coverage, but they’ve done well to brand their personalities under the Has Been Sports banner. They have a great thing going, and what they’re doing isn’t so different from what we’re doing in the sense that it’s something incredibly difficult to pull off. But, they get the branding. They get social media. So, the sky’s really the limit for this group. Happy to have worked with them this year, and incredibly grateful for their support of what we’re doing here.

Our teams got together back in the Spring for the first (hopefully annual) Past Their Prime Combine.

They kicked our asses, but they’re at least 20 years younger than all of us (rough guesstimate). So, I have absolutely no problem pulling that excuse here.

Southern Underground Pro

When we started sponsoring SUP shows and poking our heads up around the scene earlier this year, I called it a passion project. I looked at our website, filled to the brim with content about the Titans, Preds, Nashville lifestyle, movies, and humor, and I said, “yeah – I don’t know if this is going to work. What’s really in it for us?”

But, I love pro wrestling. A lot of the guys on our team love pro wrestling, so I gave it a shot, if for no other reason than because I was proud of the fact that we were financially in a position as a company to take a chance on a different type of marketing plan.

And, I was dead wrong in my initial assessment, because putting our logo on SUP fliers has yielded immensely better results than hundreds of dollars poured into Facebook marketing.

The SUP team has put in the effort to build a brand that is unique, and people are drawn to that. Where I was wrong is that I don’t think there really is much of a difference in our demographic after all. Everyone we’ve met so far has a wide array of interests, and shit – how could I not see it? We have a wide array of content that goes up on the site daily. It’s the beautiful thing about building something that has a little something for everyone.

SUP fans go to the shows because they love the gritty environment and the raw, emotional product. There’s a lot of care put into SUP, and from a broader scope, I think the same can be said for SoBros Network. We’re rough around the edges, but we’re real people. That’s something you can’t just bottle up and sell to people. We hope all of our readers feel like they’re apart of SoBros Network the way SUP fans feel like they’re apart of SUP.

And, because of that, it’s been a match made in heaven. Whatever the reason, we translate well there – wrestlers are giving us interviews now, shaking our hands, people are coming up to us at shows and asking us what we do and where they can find us. We’ve made real friends because of this…people that I talk to on a weekly basis. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.

The bottom line is that we just flat out do not have the 2018 that we’re having without the help of SUP, specifically Righteous Jesse, who has gone to great lengths to promote our brand, making sure we’re happy, help us with content, and just flat out being a good dude to each and every member of this team.

Steven Whitehouse and Friends

Our relationship with Steven Whitehouse goes way back. It’s one that I’m grateful for, and one that I aim to keep intact for the rest of my days. But, putting together Steven Whitehouse and Friends was a game-changer. I can’t stress how proud I am of those guys for stepping up and donating significant resources and putting in significant hours to become positive forces in the community.

These guys are a shining example of how to give back, and I couldn’t be prouder of the work they’re doing. We may have to ban Jonathan from next year’s putt-putt championship, though. We want a fair field.

WKRN – Good Morning Nashville

The Good Morning Nashville team has been incredibly good to us, and they’ve really had no reason to do so.

Brent helped me out on this year’s Ole Miss season preview. He and Armondo routinely submit questions for the SoBros Mailbag on Fridays. Jared, who we’ve affectionately nicknamed “The Plush” has fed us stories before, and is always sure to let us know when he has a new suit in the rotation. We ran a story on Neil Orne’s 440 tweets that he shared. That post got some big traffic numbers. But, we also get all the random likes and retweets from Nikki, Maura, and Josh (#BreslowMania), too. That’s pretty cool for a group of dudes who started out writing for 10-20 people a couple of years ago.

All of it paled in comparison to hearing that GMN gave us a shout out ON THE AIR back in the Spring. I chewed on it for a couple of hours, broke down and shot the WKRN account a DM. I was at the day job and unable to watch the show. So, I had no other way of verifying whether it was true or not. Brittney got back to me and was basically like, “yeah, that’s totally true.” I think I nearly fainted.

Having that to share with the team has been huge for our morale this year. It may not seem like much, but I can assure that it is. We work long hours on top of day jobs to create content and build a legitimate business. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover I routinely put in about 70-80 hours worth of work each week. So, yeah – as happy and ambitious as I may seem, even I have days when I stop and think, “is this ever going to happen? Is it going to be worth it one day?”

But, when I get to that point, I always look back at some of our big victories. Getting a frantic phone call from a friend saying that “Good Morning Nashville just gave you a shout out on the air” is one of those moments.

So, for all they’ve done for us, we couldn’t even think of giving out this award without mentioning them.

You guys will be able to vote on which of these collaborations/partnerships was your favorite this year once all of the 2018 SoBros Awards have been announced and the Google form has been created. We are still working on our “Best of Nashville” awards. There will be four in categories ranging from hot chicken to local breweries. We’re also finalizing a list of our most critical influences in media that we’ll be writing about in the coming weeks. But once everything is complete, we’ll have the ballot up and ready for you guys.

Other Announced 2018 SoBros Awards

The 2018 Upstanding Gentleman’s Trophy

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD and #BeBetter. “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Alabama Crimson Tide football, the WWE, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley

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