Today we’d like to introduce you to Juan Gutiérrez
Hi Juan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
The passion I feel for sports began when I was a child. In Venezuela, my home country, baseball is the most popular sport. Everywhere you go, people play and talk about baseball. In my family, sports were always present because of my father and my grandparents.
I always enjoyed the physical activity inherent to each discipline, but I also loved watching games on television and analyzing the different game situations. At the age of 14, I decided to create a page on Facebook when this social network was just starting to gain traction on the internet. The page was titled: “Lovers of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League.”
At an early age, I started writing opinion and current affairs articles about the eight teams, with an emphasis on the Navegantes del Magallanes, my beloved team in Venezuelan baseball. Seeing the large community I was building and their comments, I realized that sports journalism was the career of my dreams.
At 21 years old, while studying journalism at university, I started my first sports program at a radio station in Punto Fijo, the city where I grew up.
In 2018, I moved to Caracas to begin a new chapter in my career and train as a sports manager. During that time, I wrote for the football section of a very important sports outlet in the country.
In 2020, I made the decision to emigrate from Venezuela due to the multiple socio-political conflicts that still dominate daily life in my country.
Arriving in the United States as an immigrant has been a great challenge in every sense. A great challenge with many opportunities.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been a difficult journey if we evaluate it from my first steps.
In Venezuela, practicing free journalism is very difficult due to political and social reasons. In my experience as a sports journalist, opportunities are scarce and often come with many limitations, especially when you’re from a city far from the capital.
The effort I put in during those years to pursue my career and gain experience is something I value more every day in a country like the United States, where opportunities are available to everyone, regardless of your political, religious, economic, or social position.
I believe that the hardest part of my career was packing my degree and experiences into a suitcase without knowing if I would be able to continue pursuing my dreams in this country.
Today, I am making those dreams come true and writing new ones on my list of aspirations.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
For more than six years, I have dedicated myself to sports journalism. In Venezuela and the United States, I have had the opportunity to work for multiple media outlets in radio, television, and print.
Currently, I manage my social media accounts (@deportinto) and collaborate with one of the leading digital media outlets (Sports Venezuela) in my country, providing coverage of Venezuelan athletes in Houston and around the world.
My work is known for tracking the performance of Venezuelans in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, and other important events like the recent Copa América. In this sense, our goal is to provide our community with the best sports analysis with rigorous objectivity. We conduct interviews with key figures, serving as a platform for emerging talent.
What I am most proud of is continuing to work for Venezuelan sports despite the distance. The feeling that I can contribute, within my reach, to a better Venezuela is something I deeply value.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I tend to be a very open person, especially in the professional field. Personally, I like the beach, reggae music, wine, and reading.
Several people have asked me what other topics I would have chosen if I hadn’t selected sports. I think I would definitely choose geopolitics. I’m fascinated by reading and staying up to date with international events in that regard. Not everyone knows that about me, haha.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deportinto
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@deportinto
