Pete Guzzo
Strategy · Studio Operations · Business Development
How I Helped Build the Team and Infrastructure That Brought Barstool Sports and Other Clients to Tampa Bay
Strategy first. We build what the market needs. We put the right team around it. Then we go sell it.
The capability
When a client asks, "Can we do this?" I want our answer to be yes.
When I started developing the strategy for Shear Media Studios, I saw an opportunity to build something Tampa Bay needed: one connected production facility capable of serving everything from podcasters and content creators to commercials, films, live productions and national broadcast clients.
That meant thinking beyond individual rooms.
A roughly 15,000-square-foot facility with multiple studios patched together through their own mixers and switchers and connected through a central control room.
The goal was pretty simple: when a client asks, "Can we do this?" I want our answer to be yes. And then we figure out the best way to do it.
Build the capability for the client
I don't believe in "build it and they will come."
You have to understand what people are going to need, design for it, build the team and then go sell it.
So that's what we did.
I worked with Rhonda Shear, Van Fagan and an incredible mix of studio managers, production people, engineers, technicians, crew and partners to keep turning Shear Media Studios into one connected production operation.
The building itself became part of the strategy.
Studio G. Studio A.
Podcast environments. Multiple sets. Control. Audio. Lighting. Transmission. Connected where they need to be.
Independent where they need to be.
Each space can run its own production. The control room connects all of them when the job calls for it.
Flexible for every client.
Not designing the entire business around one type of client. That's what makes it work for all of them.
Live streaming, SRT + broadcast
Your talent can be in Tampa while your production team is somewhere else.
Shear Media Studios can live stream directly to platforms and transmit professional camera signals to another control room for remote production.
That's really all the client needs to know.
Your cameras can originate here while another control room handles the production. Your executives can watch remotely. Your talent stays in Tampa.
Years before COVID, Gene May and I were already experimenting with giving remote clients the actual camera feed — not a behind-the-scenes view — so they could participate in a production without physically being on set.
I carried that thinking into Shear.
If we're going to have a control room, it should be able to talk to other control rooms.
SRT and broadcast transmission became part of the plan before we knew exactly which client would need it. Then one did.
And then Barstool showed up
Within our first nine months, I got the opportunity to bid on a recurring Barstool Sports professional football production.
Nine months. A lot more than one client.
Barstool is a great win. But it's one piece of what we've built.
Rhonda Shear — Up All Night
The name on the building deserves a little love. Rhonda Shear's Up All Night brings original entertainment production into the facility — building on Rhonda's television legacy while creating something new from inside Shear Media Studios. Now on Roku.
Barstool Sports
Recurring national professional football production. Custom Studio G set. Five-camera workflow. Remote broadcast production and transmission.
30+ Podcast Clients + Creators
Creators, businesses and personalities using multiple configurations throughout the facility — from simple conversations to larger produced shows.
Commercials + Branded Content
Major commercial and branded productions using the facility, crews, stages, equipment and connected production infrastructure.
Film + Specialty Series
Film, episodic and specialty productions that need more than a room — they need a production home.
The infrastructure keeps moving
That's probably the part I like most. We're not done.
We're developing multiple-set configurations in Studio A. Expanding podcast access. Finding new ways to use the control room and connected infrastructure.
Watching how clients, crews and creators actually use the building and designing around them.
Because you don't really finish a production studio when construction ends.
- Multiple studios + sets
- Multiple lighting grids
- Individual mixers and switchers
- Central control room
- Podcast + creator environments
- Live streaming
- SRT + broadcast transmission
- The people using it help you finish it.
The principle
I didn't help design Shear Media Studios for Barstool Sports. I helped design an operation where a Barstool Sports could happen.
And a Rhonda Shear show. And a podcast. And a commercial. And a film. And whatever walks through the door next.
That's the strategy.
Need someone who can think like this and build like this?
Strategy, infrastructure, operations, client development — or all four. Let's talk.