Sports Business Publisher FOS' First Paid Product Is Here

Sports business publisher FOS, recently rebranded from Front Office Sports, is working with the investment app Public to underwrite the cost of its newly launched subscription product, Insights, for any college student with a ".edu" email address. College students who sign up for the promotion get Insights free for one year, as well as $10 worth of a sports-related stock, CEO Adam White told Adweek. Although FOS has built a small empire on the back of its newsletters, which have accumulated more than 500,000 free subscribers, Insights will not be a newsletter. Instead, the product will be run by former Goldman Sachs banker Liam Killingstad and cost $50 per month or $300 per year. It will offer data-driven content that lives at the intersection of sports and business, and members will also enjoy perks like access to exclusive events and discounts. White declined to name the specific figures of the deal but said that Public is paying FOS a base marketing commitment and, once it surpasses a certain threshold, a per-user commission. The 34-person FOS team is on track to generate $5 million in total revenue by the end of the year, and White forecasts it will generate $12 million by the end of 2022. “For Public, there's an opportunity to completely own this college side and be associated with the whole idea of investing in your professional and financial future,” White told Adweek. “It's a low-lift opportunity for both brands, but one that offers deep engagement, true value and accessibility to the students who will be using this platform.” NFL Data Finds Audiences Where Commercials Can’t Why go Public? FOS teamed up with Public, which said it reached 1 million registered users in February, partly because its focus on investment education and financial literacy for college students, said Katie Perry, its vp of marketing. Last month Public launched OneTeam, which encourages student-athletes to invest on Public by offering them $100 worth of stock and access to a panel of advisors to help them understand the basics of finance. Public has also built guardrails into its product designed to protect its users, such as prompts that warns them if they are investing in a volatile asset and another that cautions them against trading a stock that they had set aside for long-term growth. The aim is that Public wins students early on in their investing careers, whose overall lifetime customer value offsets its sponsorship costs. Retention challenges For FOS' part, the goal is the comped membership will drive future sign-ups for Insights. However, the collaboration poses a set of challenges unique to FOS. Although college students will gladly accept a free year of the product, many of them might struggle to justify a fairly pricey $50 per month subscription once their sponsored year has elapsed. White added FOS could arrange new sponsors to cover the costs each year. “I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that as long as we're adding value, we don't have to make students pay because they already have enough to pay for,” White said. “We can find brands to do it, and if we can't find brands to do it, then we didn't do our job.” Paywalled sports media grows crowded In addition, the landscape for subscription sports products continues to grow denser. Last June, Penske Media launched Sportico, which charges $60 per month or $600 per year for a subscription and also focuses on the intersection of sports and business. When it comes to general sports content, The Athletic has dominated the world of paid access, though Gannett just launched its answer, USA Today Sports+, earlier this month. Meanwhile, thanks to the changing rules regarding student-athlete monetization, the wider business world has grown more interested in college athletics, specifically, as a source of potential revenue. Now that student athletes can make money off their name, image and likeness (NIL), the intersection of college athletics and business will only grow more crowded. But FOS does not need to own the entire sports media subscription market for the launch of Insights to make sense, said Kerel Cooper, CMO of email-based marketing firm LiveIntent. If it can convert even 10% of its underwritten subscriptions into paying customers, the strategy could make financial sense. FOS has built a sizable newsletter subscriber base and the introduction of a paid product gives it another opportunity to upsell its readers. “This might just be an evolution of their offering,” Cooper said. “Publishers today are trying to get their readers to spend as much time with their brand as possible. I think this just offers them one more way.”

Publishing News

An Investment App Is Footing the Bill for College Students Using FOS' First Paid Product

Insights will cost $50 per month and offer insider access to the business of sports

Mark Stenberg

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Mark Stenberg