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Happy Holidays, Team! ❄️
We hope you get some time to relax and unwind during the holiday season ahead. Winter sports are upon us! It's a great time to be a fan. Our team has been hard at work in 2024 to publish free content every day. We’re grateful that you’ve made us a part of your morning routine. The past few years have been a labor of love, but…
🚨 We need your help to continue in 2025! 🚨 |
As you probably know, The Sportsletter is a small-but-mighty operation. We're not the size of ESPN, and we don't charge a monthly subscription fee like The Athletic. You also don't see sports betting ads every day as a form of monetization. Our staff of 3+ operates remotely, as we have for more than five years. Our goal was always to create the best sports email newsletter in the world (from scratch) without taking millions from investors and selling out in the process. Our audience has grown significantly since those first launch days — we weathered the storms of COVID-19 shutdowns and challenging economic seasons — but the startup grind is not for the faint of heart. We're nearing the end of our initial five-year growth phase (we've done a lot with a little), but we need you to help us chart the path forward!
🚨 If every subscriber makes a $3.50 donation to the team, we can extend our runway through 2025 and take The Sportsletter to the next level. That’s less than a Starbucks coffee or a fast food sandwich, and that’s all it takes to keep The Sportsletter in your inbox.
If you're able to give more, great! If just 25% of our dedicated daily audience comes through with $10 donation (those who open and engage with The Sportsletter consistently each morning), we can send this thing to the moon!
So far in 2024, we’ve raised roughly $15,000, and we only ask for reader donations about twice per year. Our new goal is $100,000 by 2025. That seems like a lot, but a simple $3.50 donation (per reader) would shatter that mark! And we believe we have the audience to make it happen... Teamwork! 💪 |
We’ll send more updates before and after the holidays to track our donor progress while we keep in touch and let you know of our future plans, goals, and pathway forward. Thank you to everyone who’s willing to contribute! |
If you're not in a position to make a donation, we understand. The holidays can be tough. All we ask is that you share The Sportsletter with 10 people (friends, family, co-workers), and help us grow the team. You can share the newsletter using your unique referral ID with the button below, or direct them to our website: TheSportsletter.com
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The Future (Free vs. Paywall) |
As the current newsletter market stands today, a number of paywall publishers and AI-written newsletters have come to life. We aren’t one of them, but we’re competing against them in the newsletter space. We take pride in being a free newsletter because it grants us the opportunity to reach a larger audience at no cost to the reader, but it comes at a price — revenue.
For the first five years, we’ve focused on great content without squeezing our audience or making donations a daily ask. The costs associated with the newsletter add up, too. The Sportsletter requires over $100,000 per year in operating costs that include salaries, email marketing services and Getty Images to use licensed photos, among other things like growth and advertising. We’ve considered putting the newsletter behind a $5/month paywall to produce more with fewer readers, but we don’t want to (at least, not yet). The goal has always been to give it away for free, avoid spamming you with gambling ads, and provide a sense of value, community and fun.
Our operation is supported primarily by advertisers and donations from readers like you. We've run ads with hundreds of brands over the past five years, but we read the love from our subscribers every day in our inbox, and we hope you’ll consider us in your holiday giving plans. We love that we get to inform and entertain you (for free) while helping you avoid doomscrolling for sports highlights, or missing out on some unique records and historic moments. Thank you to everyone who has already donated or supported us. And thank you all for being part of the team during this five-year journey! |
The Sportsletter's Impact |
Since our launch in 2018-19, The Sportsletter has employed more than a dozen young professionals looking for experience, internships and opportunities to break into sports media. Some of our past interns have gone on to write for CBS Sports and NFL Network.
Currently, our talented support team of Aaron and Marissa are crushing it while Jeff runs point guard on the editorial. Our management team supplies us with advertising opportunities and growth strategies, but the newsletter is much more than its bottom line. There's value (and strength) in such an incredible, dedicated audience. The Sportsletter's ads and reader donations have provided opportunities to many college students and young professionals while acting as a unique source of sports news for more than 100,000 readers during these five years.
Additionally, our team has combined to produce over 2,000 editions of The Sportsletter since the beginning. At ~1,500 words per newsletter, that’s roughly 3 million words — the entire Harry Potter series 3x over. Imagine that printed stack of copy! (makes our heads spin) We’re not bragging, but we churn out content at a high level. And we give it away for free… for the love of the game! |
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If there’s anything you’d like to see change in 2025, drop us a note! You can always email us with feedback (team@TheSportsletter.com) and let us know how we can improve. Even your favorite running back fumbles the ball sometimes, and we know we're not perfect. Whether it’s more of one sport and less of another, or simply a desire for more videos and additional content, your input will help keep us on our A-Game.
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The Winter Sports Watch List ❄️ |
The next quarter in the sports calendar has plenty to get excited about! Three months of winter sports bliss will feature a variety of football, hoops, hockey, soccer, tennis and much more. Here are some of the big events we’ll be covering that you won’t want to miss. 🏀 NBA Cup Tournament
🏆 Finals (Dec. 17)
⛳️ The Match (PGA vs. LIV) McIlroy/Scheffler vs. Koepka/DeChambeau (Dec. 17) 🥊 Boxing Aleksander Usyk vs. Tyson Fury (Dec. 21) 🏈 College Football Playoffs
1st Round Games (Dec. 20-21) Quarterfinals (Dec. 31-Jan. 1) Semifinals (Jan. 9-10) 🏆 CFP National Championship (Jan. 20)
🏈 NFL Postseason Super Wild Card Weekend (Jan. 11-13)
Divisional Playoffs (Jan. 18-19) AFC & NFC Championships (Jan. 26)
🏆 Super Bowl LIX (Feb. 9)
🎾 Tennis Australian Open (Jan. 12-26) 🏁 Racing Daytona 500 (Feb. 16) Thanks for joining us on the journey! |
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