Knight Matt

**Fast Facts**
Type of person	Individual

Matt Knight - KOTNmedia

Originally from the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Matt moved to Gawler when he was 11 with his family through his dad's work. He attended Immanuel Lutheran School Gawler (with a brief stint at Trinity) before finishing High School at Xavier College South Australia as a house captain.

"I wasn't the most academic at school, but the social side of school was something I was really passionate about and loved...."

Mum and dad really enjoyed the historic look and feel of Gawler. Even the house they lived in was a traditional 1900's stone brick home surround by our magnificent churches. It seemed like a really good place to grow up. It was a completely different vibe to Melbourne.

"I come from a heavily sporting background, sport was everything to me in Melbourne...."

The opportunity came up for the family to move to several different countries. But sport was much tougher in those countries and didn't fit the families lifestyle. They were heavily considering NZ, but finally settled on South Australia.

"I nearly ended up playing Rugby at one stage!"

Matt was into footy and cricket along with his father, and his mother even played state softball for VIC whilst his sister played basketball.

"School holidays was just spent with my mates at the cricket nets...

Matt and his colleagues left school really around the start of the social media boom. He'd spent a bit of time working in the Telstra shops his parents ran and being quite entrepreneurial Matt and his best mate Brad used to sell power bands (they'd gotten cheap from China) to his fellow students. They were always looking for the next big thing to create their own business. After working at Optus for a spell he realised that telecommunications wasn't really the field for him and he gravitated towards advertising. It was through this that he knew he wanted to do something in the social space

"I always wanted to run my own business...I love sport. How can I mix sales and sport?"

Matt ended up doing a volunteer radio show for BBBfm 89.1 Community Radio and loved every minute of it, even the commute from Norwood to Tanunda several times a week. This planted the seed of how could he run a business and make it more efficient for himself and with a pretty good understanding of social media he knew what direction he wanted to go in.

"In terms of promoting to a wider audience social media has been amazing, but I strongly believe that the best business relationships are formed face to face over a coffee or a beer or whatever"

KOTN Media officially started back in 2019 as a sports media business. It started off very casual with Matt and Brad having a bit of fun just covering local sport, but when Central Districts and the SANFL reached out they thought "Wow, people want this!" There were no other businesses like that around so they really were in a niche market. In 2020 with Covid hitting, Zoom calls with celebrities was putting them on the map with their interviews being quoted through other sources. They even offered free videos for local Gawler businesses which put their name out there even more. KOTN Media has gone from strength to strength and has even morphed into the social media management side of things and turned into a digital marketing agency.

As well as KOTN, Matt was involved with Eagles WWTFC as the reserves head coach and found it quite surreal with some of the (current and former) football stars he gets the rub shoulders with. He is also a part owner of the Barossa Crushers who play as part of the APL 20/20 cricket league. Only recently he's been appointed as A Grade Senior Men’s Coach of the Athelstone Football Club "Raggies".

"If there's sport in the TV I'll watch anything to be honest...

Matt's recently gotten into soccer and you might even catch him watching some World Series Darts every now and then.

But with all of that other stuff going on, Matt's normal 9 - 5 is working for WISE Employment which is a disability employment service, far away from sports. It's very fulfilling. He still plays a bit of cricket and also football for Gawler Centrals when he can and might even wind down in front of some Call Of Duty on PlayStation whenever he gets the chance.

First shared on Gawler in Photographs ‘Humans of Gawler’ series 27 September 2023.

Photographs by Daniel James Down. Please click here to visit the Gawler in Photographs Facebook page.

Gawler History Team Inc thanks Daniel James Down (Gawler in Photographs) and the subjects of ‘Humans of Gawler’ for allowing us to preserve their profiles and photographs for future generations of Gawlerites to enjoy.

Please click here to view photos of Matt Knight.

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