Players and Podcasts: Keeping Up with Katia Dragotis ’07

Alumni Office (A): Can you introduce yourself?

Katia Dragotis ’07 (K): I’m Katia Dragotis, COO of Purple Banter Entertainment. I’m from Minneapolis, but I’ve been in LA for about nine years. This is home now.

A: Can you tell us about your journey to founding Purple Banter?

K: Yeah, my career has not been a straight path. I have degrees in journalism and business, and throughout my career, I’ve found the opportunity to utilize both, for which I'm super thankful. I think there's just a dichotomy between who I am, and I really enjoy both sides of me. I started in the sports industry looking at marketing and PR. I did a lot of writing and had a few on-camera opportunities here and there. It is actually what brought me out to Los Angeles for work. My first job was covering women's basketball for UCLA, and I did a little bit of coverage on the Los Angeles Sparks. That was my first journalism job out here as was working on NFL RedZone, the show for DirecTV. I spent eight seasons with them on the research side, which was a great opportunity. 

Along that path, I worked on a couple of startups. I've always been a hands-on individual who wanted to enhance control of my own career. Once I left my last startup, I went to work for a company called memmo.me, the European version of Cameo. They were launching their North American Division, and I was head of their partnerships. And, honestly, I didn’t like it. It just wasn't what I had expected. I had gone from an environment where I was the boss, and I was running everything, to an environment that was like 160 people. I didn't share the same vision as the founders, which, if you've ever been in a startup environment, you should share the same vision. If you don't, then you should probably not be part of that startup. Now, as we expand and grow Purple Banter, I hope that we are able to properly communicate our vision and our purpose so that we can build a team that really embodies the company's mission.

From there, my now co-founder and friend LJ was starting to mess around with the formation of Purple Banter. So, while I was still at memmo, he hit me up and was like, “Hey, I know you obviously know football really well, and you've been on camera. I'm starting a Vikings podcast. You want to host it with me?” Vikings Weekly, which has now rebranded to Vikings Banter, became this fun little hobby, and as we were developing that show LJ was like, “Hey, this is what I'm building, and I’d love for you to go along in the journey with me”. So, that's how we started Purple Banter.

A: Can you tell me about some of your career accomplishments that you're really proud of?

K: One of the things I'm definitely proud of is when I was working for a company called ProTrending during the pandemic. We were able to do a NBA draft exclusive on one of the player's fashion throughout the NBA Draft and partnered with designers, stylists, and photographers and created this great huge profile that we had exclusivity to it. Not only was that extremely rewarding as a small platform, but then to also do it entirely virtually and have all of these parts just come together took a lot of hard work, and I think it came out amazing.

A: As you think about your time at Breck, are there any experiences or lessons that you learned that you still use today in your career?

K: I would say, as most people will, Breck was always a challenge, academically and scheduling-wise. It was funny to me to go from Breck and really just diving into the full experience where you have class all day, and then you go to practice or rehearsal until five or six and then spend your night doing homework, to then go into college and have four classes and so much free time. It was a very pleasing surprise – I'm like, “What do you mean I only have four classes, this is easy.” I'm a huge scheduler. I write checklists. That scheduling aspect comes from the long time I spent at Breck.

A: So you're launching a new podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about the planning process and what made that a reality? Why did you move forward with the one that you're launching?

 
K: Keeping Up With Sports with Caitlyn Jenner and Lamar Odom. This project was brought to us by another production partner who I'm friends with, who had the concepts and was really looking for a production arm and concept to bring this to life. One of the cornerstones of Purple Banter is that we want to be known as a network that has diverse voices and various creators. Getting the opportunity to work with two of the biggest names in sports overall was a huge opportunity for us. 

The show is really cool because it doesn't just talk with Caitlin, Lamar, and Zach, our third host, about their experiences in sports. It brings in the guests and talks about the ethos of the concept of sports, what competition means to them, what that's done for their lives, and some of the more vulnerable things and hardships that these athletes have gone through. I think it really humanizes athletes as well. 

A: Who is the coolest person that you've met in your career?

K: I grew up around basketball really closely with my dad and me, being in the 90s and 2000s eras. I was doing red-carpet interviews, probably my second year in LA, and Dennis Rodman came down the carpet. I got to spend time with him, and we had a really fun interview. The fun and stressful thing about doing red-carpet interviews is you don't know who's walking down the carpet, and sometimes you don't even know the person. But, we had a really fun, five-minute interview, and it's definitely something that was like, “This is cool”. 

A: What are you doing in your free time when you aren't on a shoot or producing new content?

K: The fact that I can drive five minutes every single morning, hop on one of the canyons, and get a hike is my favorite thing about living in LA. I love the diversity where I can be in the mountains and visit the ocean on the same day. I'm super active; I box three times a week. With my crazy schedule, athletics and working out is something that keeps me sane. I'm always thinking of different businesses. I'm writing a novel right now, which I didn’t really think would ever be something that I would do, but it's something that's really turned into a personal, passion project, and I think it’s kind of my next calling.

Katia lives in Los Angeles. You can keep up with her company at purplebanter.com and on Instagram @purplebanter.