The Man Behind Overtime's Social: Meet Tom Weingarten
As a junior at Iona, Tom Weingarten had high hopes and dreams that he could one day get into sports.
Starting his sports journey aspiring to be a coach. Had his own AAU team, and had stints coaching both high school football and of course the game he loves, basketball. But with inspiration from the rock in his life, everything changed for Weingarten.
Spearheaded by inspiration from his mother Kathy and the confidence of a bull, Weingarten did just that. At the age of 21, Weingarten made an extremely specific google search that would ultimately change his life.
“I went to the 49th search for Sports Internships and found this smaller company called Tally Sports,” Weingarten said. The company was on the smaller side and Weingarten just wanted a start. Little did he know it was the start of something special for the South Salem native.
Weingarten runs the famous @Overtime social. It’s a role he’s had from the jump, something he has evidently been successful in. Overtime has amassed 65 million followers on social media, a feat that isn’t happening without the newly-minted director of social. In addition, the company Tik Tok has recently surged past the 20,000,000 mark, which is impressive knowing the app is just growing.
With that being said, Weingarten is much more than just a guy who runs social media accounts.
He’s also become an on-air personality for the multi-million dollar media company. He’s done anything from spectating events, mic himself up, interview players, and take part in any other Overtime videos he was featured in.
On top of that, Overtime’s been rising in not just the game of basketball. They’ve built a sports empire, also shifting gears and covering football. Thankfully for Overtime, they have a guy who once coached football and also is a social media genius. If you mix the two, you get OT7.
“OT7, it’s been dope. Working with our amazing team to build up football at Overtime has been unreal. The kids have so much swag and are tons of fun. I’ve been loving it.”
Obviously, Overtime’s staff is huge and there are plenty of people to credit for the creation of the freshly-created football league in Overtime. With that being said, Weingarten did have a major part in OT7.
The event/league is run by Overtime but is also a collaboration with Heisman trophy winner and a former top-NFL draft pick, Cam Newton. Weingarten was a part of working with Newton, an experience he says he is grateful for and will never forget.
OT7 held its first major event in Las Vegas this summer and it featured some of the best high school football players in the country and was a major success.
Now, we shift gears to Overtime Elite. The basketball league that they put together last year, was also another huge success. For Weingarten, the creation of OTE was a humbling and emotional moment for him.
“I remember just sitting in the OTE arena when it first opened and just thinking wow.” Watching Overtime’s leap to success is something that Weingarten takes pride in, and is thankful for people like Dan Porter and his mother Kathy.
Weingarten continues to push out content every day and I know plenty of people, including himself, are looking forward to seeing more success come his way.