Business Idea #499: A Sports Newsletter 📰

📝 Summary

There's a version of every industry that almost nobody covers: the boring, behind-the-scenes, business side.

That's where Extra Points found its opening in college sports. The newsletter now makes money four ways: subscriptions ($9/mo or $84/year), ad deals, educational materials, and a data library priced at $300/mo or $3,000/year.

It shows how much room there is in the boring corner of any niche, and how many ways you can monetize it. One niche, four income streams. That's the model to steal.

​[Full Case Study + Business Link Below] ⬇️

🛠️ Tools Required

• Hosting & Domain: Bluehost
• Website Platform: WordPress
• Newsletter Platform: Kit
• Content Planning: Notion
• Sponsorship CRM: Trello (for tracking and managing brand sponsorships)

💸Startup Costs

I'd recommend budgeting $800 to get this rolling. The hosting & domain will cost you $48/year, and an email platform like Kit starts at $33/month. If you want to turn your newsletter archive into a search-friendly blog, you can use an SEO tool like, SE Ranking (starts at $65/month for a basic plan). Notion and Trello offer free tiers for content planning and managing your brand deals, so you won't have to budget for those immediately.

🧠 Knowledge Required

To succeed, you'll need digital marketing knowledge. Our course covers:

• Module 1: Making Your Website → Build a professional website with WordPress​
• Module 2: SEO → Get your site ranking for relevant keywords​
• Module 4: Email Marketing → Keep users engaged​
• Module 6: Social Media Marketing → Use different platforms to grow your business.​

Other:

• How to structure a paid newsletter: In 6 Steps​
• How to grow your email list from zero: A Simple Blueprint​

Case Study Analysis - A Sports Newsletter: Extra Points

What does this online business do? 🚀

Extra Points is a newsletter and media company focused on college sports. It explains how the business side of college sports works, which is an overlooked corner of sports media.

Interested parties often struggle to find information on how budgets and league rules affect college sports. Extra Points fills this gap with research-backed reporting. It also offers learning materials for people who want to understand college sports as a business.

Curious about how this online business makes money? Keep reading to learn more.

As always, we share the strategies behind its success and potential growth opportunities.

How does this online business make money? 💻

Extra Points makes money in a couple of ways;

1) Newsletter Subscriptions 💰📩

Most of the money comes from newsletter subscriptions. Extra Points sends four newsletters a week.

Two are free and paid for by ads, and two are only for paid subscribers. The subscription costs $9/Mo or $84/year.

2) Advertising 📢🎯

Ads bring in money too. Extra Points uses regular ads through platforms like Kit and direct ad deals or sponsored posts with brands that want to reach college sports fans.

The latter pays a lot more.

3) Classroom Materials 📚 🎓

Colleges that teach sports management can buy learning materials from Extra Points.

The package includes access to a game called Athletic Director Simulator 4000, white papers, and other tools.

It costs less than a textbook, stays more up to date, and is discounted when bought in bulk.

4) Data Library 🗄️📊

The fastest growing product is Extra Points Library, a database holding about 15,000 documents on school budgets, coach contracts, and vendor deals.

Schools and professionals use it for research and planning. It costs $300/Mo or $3,000/year.

What has this business done well?🔥

What makes Workspaces a successful online business? Let’s have a look;

1) Niche Focus 📊🏈

Extra Points focuses solely on the business side of college sports, making it the go-to source for a topic most sports media ignores.

This means little direct competition and attracting a very specific, loyal audience.

2) Newsletter Model 📩🔁

Extra Points sends four newsletters a week, two free and two paid.

The schedule keeps readers in the habit of checking in, while the free content lets new people try it out before paying.

3) Original Data and Research 📁🔍

Extra Points Library holds around 15,000 documents covering budgets, contracts, and vendor deals.

This kind of primary source data on college sports is scarce, which builds trust and makes the site hard to replace.

4) Educational Products 🎓📚

By selling bundled subscriptions and tools like the Athletic Director Simulator 4000 to schools, Extra Points reaches students and professors directly.

This has opened up a reliable customer base beyond regular readers.

5) Social Media Presence 🔗📱

Extra Points uses social media to connect with its audience.

By showing up where readers already spend time, the brand reaches people beyond its email list and pulls new traffic back to the newsletter and site.

What this business could improve?🔥🔥🔥

To grow over the long term, Extra Points can improve on this idea;

1) Address Declining Organic Traffic 📈🔍

Extra Points’ organic traffic has dropped from an all-time high of 252K to 2K currently, which means fewer people are finding the site through search.

This kind of drop usually means the site lost rankings on top pages or search engines stopped favoring its content.

To recover, Extra Points should audit its top-performing pages from that peak period to see what changed, then rebuild its SEO with clear title tags, meta descriptions, header structure, internal linking, and keyword targeting.

It should also structure its content to be AI search-friendly so AI tools can easily reference its articles.

The Takeaway, What We Learned 🎓

• Niche Focus: Pick a specific niche or a neglected one for extra points, to avoid heavy competition and build a loyal audience.
• Newsletter Model: Set a regular schedule for your content and consider offering free access to build trust with potential subscribers.
• Original Data and Research: When possible, offer original resources or tools that are hard to find so you’re incredibly valuable to your audience.
• Educational Products: Consider educational offers that could open up a whole new profitable audience for you.
• Social Media Presence: Being active where your audience already hangs out keeps you visible and brings them back to your main business.

That’s a wrap! Extra Points shows that focusing on a super specific niche can still be profitable.

Eager to build your own profitable newsletter? Check out the FREE course at Max Business School to get started.