Interview (Part 1): Adam Best

My interview with 2023 Black List writer for his script The Wolf in Chiefs Clothing.

Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Adam Best about his creative background, the craft of screenwriting, and his Black List script The Wolf in Chiefs Clothing.

Today in Part 1 of a 6-part series to run each day this week, Adam discusses his lifelong passion for the Kansas City Chiefs football team, his success with sports blogging, and what Taylor Swift has to do with all this.

Scott Myers: Congratulations on making the Black List in 2023.

Adam Best: Thank you! It was an exciting development that happened fast. The version of “The Wolf in Chiefs Clothing” that made the list was a first draft I finished on September 30. My manager, Nadya Panfilov of Writ Large, signed me three weeks later. Then on December 11th, the script had enough steam to crack the list. Quite the 10-week ride. I’ve long been a huge fan of how the Black List amplifies fresh voices and voices from outside of LA. I currently live in Huntsville, Alabama.

Scott: I went to your website (adambest.com). It describes you as screenwriter, podcaster, entrepreneur. I’d like to ask you about those three parts of your creative life, but in reverse order, starting with entrepreneur. You were co-founder and former CEO of FanSided. Could you tell us the history of that?

Adam: Yeah. I fell into it, actually. It started with a website called arrowheadaddict.com, which we’ll come back to when we talk about the subject of the script — the “Kansas City Chiefs.” We launched a niche website with a voice that was unabashedly from the fans’ perspective. It’s more common now to have a voice in news, journalism and all that kind of stuff.

But back then, it was the dawn of the blogging era. So it was a relatively new idea. It went so well, we thought we could expand to every fan base. Not just in sports but also entertainment, music, what have you. Everything from the New York Yankees to Game of Thrones.

Over a period of years, we expanded our network. Eventually, I was able to help engineer an acquisition to “Sports Illustrated” and Time Inc. Stuck around for a bit, hit my goals and made sure the company had solid footing. It’s still thriving, but I moved on to other challenges.

Scott: What time-frame are we looking at here?

Adam: We’re looking at 2007 to 2017, a decade.

Scott: This started from a passion that you had for sports, football in particular.

Adam: Yeah. My brother and I had wanted to work on something together for a while. Business background on his side, plus web design. He is a talented, smart guy. I actually was trying to be a screenwriter at the time, but I made this online sports writing contest that Fox Sports was doing called the Next Great Sports Writer.

I was one of 10 finalists. I didn’t win, but my brother and I started discussing a joint venture. We were looking for Kansas City Chiefs coverage that didn’t exist, so we decided to team up and create it. The idea just worked. We came up with a formula. I know that’s a dirty word in this business. We had a lot of fun and created quite a few jobs, so it was a great ride.

Scott: You actually had a preceding interest in screenwriting, so let’s talk a bit about that. When did you discover it? How did you start learning the craft?

Adam: Way back when — late ’90s, early 2000s, when I first went to college — I basically went there to play football. Then I hurt my knee again. Injuries piled up. I was practically sleeping in the training room trying to get my body right. I had to face the harsh reality that, due to injuries, I probably wasn’t going to be able to perform well in college, let alone go pro.

So I started looking at other things. I’ve always been a huge movie buff. I thought, yeah, maybe there’s something there. I started taking theater courses because that’s the closest thing they had in Kansas, where I went to college. My mom bought me Movie Magic Screenwriter software and a screenwriting magazine in 1999. She gave me the initial push. The Long Kiss Goodnight by Shane Black was the first script I read. Forget how I hunted it down. Back then it was a long, arduous process. Also remember reading Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind over and over, trying to figure out how the hell Charlie Kaufman pulled that off.

I studied playwriting and eventually went to film school, but then fell into being an entrepreneur. The plan was to keep the screenwriter fire lit, but also go out and make some money, find some security. Then come back to it later. It took longer than I thought, but that was because it was never my primary focus. Hard to crack such a competitive industry that way.

At some point I had to say, “OK, screenwriting has to be my plan, not my backup plan.” It was roughly a 20-year journey to get there.

Scott: You went to film school. Did the FanSided thing happen after that or during that?

Adam: After. I went to Full Sail in 2002–2003. Post-graduation, I was a bartender/server during the day, then wrote at night. I moved out to LA for a couple years. Nothing was happening for me. Just wasn’t coming together. So I jumped at the chance to do this other thing. A decade later, I look up, I’m older and not running out of time, but starting to think eventually I got to do this.

Scott: You’re also now back to the Arrowhead Addict Podcast.

Adam: Yeah. A couple years ago, they asked if I’d want to come back to AA, do a podcast and help build their new YouTube channel. I jumped at the chance.

When I covered the Chiefs back in the late 2000s, not to be harsh but they kinda sucked. So it was a different experience. I never dreamed they’d become what they are now. My whole life growing up, they never had a franchise quarterback. They went 21 years without winning a playoff game. So to cover them in this golden era of Chiefs football was something I jumped at.

Scott: Beyond golden era, they’re heading to the Super Bowl next week. They’ve become this phenomenon in part because of the romance between Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. That must be a mind-blowing experience to cover the Chiefs with all that going on.

Adam: Chiefs Kingdom always knew Travis Kelce had superstar potential that transcended the football field. A charismatic, talented, bright guy. That said, this level of fame, dating perhaps the most famous person on Earth, is something none of us could have predicted.

The Chiefs always felt like this small market team from the Midwest nobody paid attention to. A second-class franchise. Hadn’t been to the Super Bowl in 50 years. There’s East Coast bias and all that. Now, I feel like we’re a marquee franchise. The Swifties coming on board is wild. For this project, in particular, “The Wolf in Chiefs Clothing,” it was a perfect storm that I wrote it with Travis Kelce as a character in the script.

I saw Uncut Gems. Ex-NBA star Kevin Garnett plays himself and is fantastic. I thought Travis Kelce would be terrific doing that same thing. That was after he hosted —

Scott: Saturday Night Live.

Adam: Yeah. I immediately thought, look, he’s got the acting itch. But no one could have predicted that he would end up dating Taylor Swift in a whirlwind romance.

Scott: I want to get to your script, but I’ve got to ask you this because you’re inside the Chiefs Kingdom here. There’s all these conspiracy theories, I’m sure you’ve seen these things. It’s so crazy.

Some people are claiming it’s like a psyops thing with the Biden Administration. Taylor Swift is going to announce her support of Biden and/or Kelce is going to propose to her in the Super Bowl. It’s just mind-boggling. Do you have any inside scoop on any of that?

Adam: I think there’s a much better chance of him proposing at some point soon-ish than him being involved in some vast Illuminati conspiracy. I’m not really buying that. Travis is fairly straightforward. It’s farfetched that a hard-partying tight end would be the epicenter of some vast conspiracy. I don’t think there’s much merit to it.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Adam talks about the real-life inspiration for The Wolf in Chiefs Clothing and movies which influenced the writing of his Black List script.

Adam is repped by Writ Large.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3CdquRsu60VZcbGMfr1WgQ\
https://arrowheadaddict.com/
https://twitter.com/adamcbest

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.