A Founder's Story: The Unexpected Road to Ryval Studios

Jon Morgan on finding his place in sports, trusting God through uncertainty and building a creative studio where the work—and the people behind it—matter

Jon Morgan didn’t set out to build a sports production company. He planned to become a pastor and counselor.

But a series of closed doors, an unexpected job loss, and an opportunity with Illinois football eventually led him somewhere he hadn’t imagined: founding Ryval Studios, the sports-focused creative studio behind work for organizations including the Carolina Hurricanes, St. Louis Blues and Indiana Hoosiers.

The path from freelance beginnings in 2015 to launching the Ryval brand in January 2020 was anything but straightforward. Three months after that launch, sports went dark. For Morgan, the story of what followed is inseparable from his faith, his family, and the people who helped turn an uncertain venture into a studio with a distinct creative ambition: to make work that feels specific to the organization it represents, with a level of care that extends through the entire production.

Below, Morgan reflects on the decisions and convictions that shaped Ryval.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

A different plan

My plan through high school and college was to go into ministry. I studied psychology and Christian studies, had experience working in churches, and expected to pursue graduate school and counseling.

Then I met my wife and moved to St. Louis. The church opportunities I was pursuing didn’t come together and my graduate school plans didn’t work out the way I expected. I took a job at a plastics manufacturer, doing a mix of customer service, sales and creative work—photography, video, design, whatever was needed.

When that division downsized in the summer of 2015, I was let go.

I had taken digital media and video classes in high school and knew I had an eye for creative work. So I started freelancing under JM Film Design, initially thinking I could make some money until the next opportunity came along.

The next opportunity never really came. Instead, about six months in, I had to decide whether I was going to give this business a serious chance.

I didn’t have an established industry network or years of agency experience. There was a lot to learn about both the craft and running a company. I worked with coaches and consultants, learned through experience, and gradually focused on video.

There wasn’t one big moment when I knew it would work. There were smaller confirmations: another project, a bigger opportunity, a client happy with what we delivered. Each gave me enough confidence to take the next step.

Finding our lane

For the first several years, we took on a wide range of corporate and commercial production. We were making progress, but I was still trying to figure out where we fit and how to differentiate.

In 2019, I sent Illinois football a video I had made for a college football recruit and suggested we could help their recruiting department with something similar.

They said yes.

That fall became our first significant production with a sports team. It stretched us, and it also showed me a direction I wanted to pursue. I had played sports growing up, particularly football and the opportunity to combine that background with creative production clicked.

The Ryval brand launched in January 2020.

Then, three months later, the world shut down.

Learning to keep going

For a while, I didn’t know whether we could count on sports as a business. Nobody knew when things would return or what they would look like.

I kept reaching out—emails, calls, conversations, any opportunity to get in front of people and show them what we could do.

One of those conversations was with the Carolina Hurricanes. We first connected in 2021 and developed a concept they liked, but the timing wasn’t right. They told us to keep it in mind for the following year.

We stayed in touch. In 2022, we got the opportunity.

That relationship became a major turning point. We worked on their media day production and 25th anniversary campaign spot. We also worked with the St. Louis Blues and Saint Louis University that fall. Together, those projects gave me the confidence to make sports our exclusive focus at the beginning of 2023.

The uncertainty hadn’t disappeared. But we had evidence that we could execute at that level and a clearer understanding of where we wanted to go.

Finding our momentum

Once we committed exclusively to sports in 2023, things really began to take off. In just three years, we’ve gone from that foothold with the Hurricanes, Blues, and Saint Louis University to working with dozens of the biggest college and professional teams in the country.

Along the way, our work has earned multiple Emmy Awards, a national ADDY and a Silver Clio Sports Award. Those honors mean a lot, especially knowing where we started and how many people have helped us get here.

One of the projects I’m proudest of is the centennial opening video we created for the Chicago Blackhawks in 2025. To be trusted with a piece marking 100 years of that organization was a significant milestone for Ryval.

The growth since 2023 has given us a much clearer sense of what’s possible. Those early projects gave us the confidence to commit to sports. What’s happened since has given us the momentum to build on that decision and expand into more of the industry.

The foundation beneath the business

There were plenty of times I wanted to quit.

My wife was a huge part of why I kept going. She encouraged me when I doubted myself and made sacrifices that allowed me to travel, meet people and pursue opportunities. She was investing in the company, too, even when her contribution happened far from a set.

And at the center of all of it was my faith.

When I look at where I started and what Ryval has become, I see God’s faithfulness and provision. I prayed for opportunities, but also for direction—for the confidence to continue if this was what I was supposed to do and the willingness to recognize it if it wasn’t.

Looking back, I can see how I was being prepared for the next challenge, even when I couldn’t see it at the time.

That’s why faith belongs in this story. It shapes how I understand the journey and the responsibility of building the company.

Making work that belongs to the team

I want someone to watch our work and feel that it belongs to that organization.

That requires us to keep asking what makes each team, each story, and each project different. The creative should come from that understanding.

Sometimes the goal is energy and anticipation. Sometimes it’s something more reflective. The Hurricanes’ 25th anniversary piece, for example, was about creating an emotional connection. We wanted people to feel the significance of the team and its history.

That range matters to me. Sports gives us so much to work with: identity, pride, memory, competition, community. There are many ways to make people care.

Our job is to find the right expression for the particular story we’re helping tell.

Building care into the company

I’m equally passionate about what clients experience while we’re making that work.

Creative ambition means a lot more when people can trust you to follow through. We sweat the details, take ownership, and stay invested through the end of a project.

That has to extend beyond me. It includes our small in-house team, and the directors, editors and freelance creatives we bring into each production. The people involved need to care about their work and about the people counting on them.

I want clients to feel that their project matters to us personally. Their name is on it. Ours is, too.

As Ryval grows, that’s something I want to protect.

The next chapter

The momentum we’ve built is opening up the next chapter for Ryval. Sports will remain our focus and we’re expanding how we serve that market.

Through Hylight Studios, our sister brand now in testing, we’re bringing smaller-scale media day productions, intro videos, and graphics packages to high schools, smaller colleges and semi-pro teams. It’s a way to bring what we’ve learned working with major organizations to teams with different needs and resources.

We’re also expanding into other areas of sports content and production, including opportunities with brands, sponsors, leagues, conferences and broadcast networks, while developing original sports documentary content.

Those opportunities take different forms, but they all build on what drew me into this space: the chance to make meaningful creative work around sports and the people connected to it.

I couldn’t have mapped out the path that brought us here. What I can do is keep building with the same convictions—trusting God, caring for people, and taking responsibility for the work in front of us.