{"id":15788,"date":"2019-03-05T19:59:10","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T19:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/?p=15788&post_type=story"},"modified":"2020-03-30T15:31:46","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T15:31:46","slug":"house-of-highlights","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/house-of-highlights\/","title":{"rendered":"House of Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring 2019 | By\u00a0Nicole Dudenhoefer \u201917<\/b><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

[photo id=”16143″ title=”PhotoGallery-template-600x800_Highlights” alt=”Bleacher Report\u2019s House of Highlights’ creator Omar Raja position=”left” width=”225px”][\/photo]<\/p>\n

Omar Raja \u201916\u00a0<\/strong>has always loved sports, and he remembers a specific moment from his childhood when he felt its magic. Before a blacked-out playoff game between the Colts and Dolphins, Raja and his father, along with their friends, loaded up a car and drove from their home in Miami to Naples, Florida, to watch the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all watching this game in a small, little hotel room with 15 to 20 people. I\u2019ve never seen more grown men pray for a Dolphins win in my life,\u201d Raja says. \u201cThat was the moment\u00a0for me when I was like, \u2018Oh wow, this is special.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

As the creator of Bleacher Report\u2019s House of Highlights, Raja\u2019s job is to curate sports moments his 12 million Instagram followers connect with \u2014 the majority of which are instances of athletes\u2019 expressions that he turns into relatable memes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t just get the dunk and assist and the touchdown passes that everyone else gets. We find moments in sports that nobody else finds \u2026 and we do it before everybody else \u2014 consistently,\u201d Raja says.<\/p>\n

That consistency first developed in August 2014 as Raja was entering his junior year at UCF. LeBron James had just left the Miami Heat, and Raja was looking for certain highlights that he couldn\u2019t find on any social platform. The business major<\/a> spent three weeks looking for clips and began posting them to an Instagram page he called \u201cHouse of Highlights.\u201d<\/p>\n

By early 2016 \u2014 five months before Raja\u2019s graduation \u2014 sports culture website Bleacher Report acquired Raja\u2019s account and offered him a full-time job running it. His day-to-day operations change on a monthly basis, but they usually include creating content, posting to the account and traveling to pitch to brands. Raja undoubtedly loves what he does, but it can be challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hardest part about [creating] content is you and I can both watch the same video and have different opinions on it,\u201d Raja says. \u201cYou can\u2019t please everybody. You\u2019ve just got to please the majority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, House of Highlights expanded beyond its Instagram success with the launch of a\u00a0live Twitter show. While it was nerve-wracking for Raja to meet athletes when he first started working in the industry, he now comfortably sits down with them, gaining behind-the- scenes insights and capturing moments no one else does, as he always has.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found when athletes open up, when they\u2019re being honest about what they felt about a certain teammate or a coach, or give more details on what happened during a game, it\u2019s what\u2019s most successful with our audience,\u201d Raja says. \u201cWhat\u2019s great about sports is it makes people from different walks of life come together and celebrate moments that they\u2019re passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16148,"template":"","categories":[],"tags":[248,324],"class_list":["post-15788","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-alumni","tag-college-of-business","issues-1348","issues-spring-2019"],"yoast_head":"\nUCF Grad, Instagram Mogul with House of Highlights Success<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Before he even graduated, Omar Raja \u201916 launched a popular Instagram account and landed a career with Bleacher Report. 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