ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (February 27, 2018) — Jack Blake is no stranger to having a video camera in his face.
As with all of his Tampa Bay Rowdies teammates, Blake is the occasional subject of a wide range of videos, from interviews to behind the scenes footage to features.
But now, Blake is taking the camera into his own hands with a new YouTube channel designed to give fans and followers an insight into the life of a 23-year old Englishman playing professional soccer in the United States.
See the introduction below. The full first episode is at the bottom of this story. You can subscribe to Blake’s channel here.
“My goal is to show people what life is like for me,” Blake said. “Not just what they already see on the field, but what they don’t see in my personal life. Life as a professional footballer has massive ups and massive downs. I want to give people the insight to see and let them either confirm or deny their beliefs on how footballers live.”
As if a cross-state move from Jacksonville to Tampa Bay and having a newborn son wasn’t enough to fill his days, Blake is embarking on this journey mostly on his own. He taught himself how to shoot and edit video.
Blake’s goal is for his videos to be an entertaining and honest reflection of his life.
“At the end of the day, I just want to make the footage appealing to people,” Blake said. “I want them to enjoy the videos. I want to be myself on the videos. I want to have a laugh along the journey with people. … It’s something I want to be completely open. I don’t want to hide anything. This is the journey. There will be videos with a lot of downs and videos with a lot of ups.”
As Blake sees it, soccer players have plenty of free time where they’re asked by coaches to relax and put their feet up. Blake will use that time to edit videos in the hopes of publishing at least one video a week about topics ranging from road trips to training habits to nutrition.
Maybe one day in the future, after Blake’s playing career is over, the skills he’s learning today can help him stay in the game as soccer continues to modernize and video continues to play an important role.
“I’ve invested a lot of time so far,” he said. “I didn’t want to put something out that didn’t look professional. I’ve had some help from close friends and families. I clip and edit the videos myself. It’s a skill I had to learn.”
In this first episode, Blake takes you through his day on February 17, the day the Rowdies played the Montreal Impact.
