Snapback Sports 2023 Investor Update (PUBLIC)

Big Win: Content

In 2023, we took a major step as a Sports Media company evolving from ‘the largest sports snapchat’ to a sports media company that creates highly engaged content. 

We made 2 large investments in content in 2023.

1. Punch Line Podcast w/ Marlon Humphrey
   
   Punch Line, which launched in late August, has already amassed 25K subscribers on YT, averaging 30,000 views per episode. Transparently, we were looking for explosive growth on this content but due to some factors out of our control, we’ve instead leaned on very steady growth. Ironically, this could not have ended up any better for us. When looking across the market, we monitor some other Athlete driven podcasts.
   
   The 2 I will reference today are Trae Young and RG3’s podcast. Trae Young has over 30K+ subscribers on his podcast in large part to an episode where Lonzo Ball joined as a guest. That episode alone earned 800K views and gained the channel 20K+ subscribers. The downside to a one-off viral episode is that you gain subscribers who won’t listen to future episodes. Trae’s solo episodes where he talks with his co-host only receive about 10K-15K views.

RG3 and the Ones. I’m a fan of RG3 and his commitment to the media. He’s doing a great job and for some reason his podcast hasn’t quite taken off yet. RG3’s podcast is produced by Wave Sports and Entertainment who also produce the Kelce’s and Paul George. Wave has the playbook down pat and the distribution to go with it. RG3’s show has exceeded Punch Line in subscribers but not in viewership. They had a few viral shorts which led to a heightened subscriber count but not heightened long form viewership.

I mention both these examples to showcase how our steady, up to the right growth has put us in an awesome spot. Collaboration with the NFL, Baltimore Ravens, Bleacher Report and segments being picked up by the Pat McAfee show has allowed for this growth. By this time next year, I expect another crop of athlete podcasts to launch, so what will set us apart?

1. Marlon Humphrey is a star in content. People are coming to his show for him. The guests add distribution but if you look at the successful podcasts in the space (McAfee, Pardon My Take, Paul George), the viewer has to come for the show and NOT the guest.

2. Our understanding of social content, connections within the industry and distribution.

Snapback Sports YouTube

At our January offsite, we made the decision to go all-in on longform content, specifically betting on YT as the platform. We hired Matt Batson, our senior YouTube video editor, started working with a YT thumbnail designer, shifted Casey, our head of content, to focus on YT strategy and have even started working with a YT consultant. After 9 months, our YT channel had grown 500K subscribers! But it was actually bad. Our channel had grown via shorts and shorts that did not match the longform content. 

Example: We had a Mascot pouring popcorn on a fan receive 184M views ($0 in revenue generated), yet our longform videos were receiving only 400 views. After improving our content, the packaging and studying the Punch Line analytics, the choice became clear. We needed a fresh start. Essentially, our channel became dead thanks to those shorts…

So on November 4th, we made the crazy decision to delete our YT channel with 600K subscribers (it still exists, just is hidden).

Since the launch of our new channel, we’ve posted 6 videos with them receiving: 2.6K, 2.3K, 11K, 450, 50K!!, and 1K views. For context, an average video on the last channel would receive 400 views with the highest receiving 2.2K (Winning the Kentucky Derby).

We’re extremely encouraged by the results but know there’s a lot more work to be done!

Other wins in 2023

1. Rebranded the company

   After 5 years, we worked with a phenomenal designer to come up with our brand colors, logo and overall branding

2. Commonwealth Partnership

   We partnered with Commonwealth to bring awareness to their product which allows fractional ownership of racing horses. Throughout our partnership, it led us to end up in the Owners Suite for the Kentucky Derby…If you don’t know what happened next with Mage, click here.

3. 2 other amazing content series

   1. Snapback Thursdays! We went to every TNF this season and amassed over 100M views again. More details on that to come

   2. AL Central Stadium Tour. 5 cities in 5 days. Sold out an entire section of 50 people at each stadium. Filmed content at every stadium with the grand prize winner coming to the World Series with us!

4. Launched SuperFAM 

   A membership community for our top 1,000 fans

   Custom built our Snapback Hats 

5. Growth of our Social Channels

#1 Challenge faced in 2023: Revenue

Revenue growth. Our goal for 2023 was PRIVATE and we came in around PRIVATE.

It was a tough advertising market in 2023. Brands pulled back spend, budgets got slashed and the $$$ rich market we enjoyed from 2020-2022 did not exist. In addition, we expected a large revenue stream to be our Snapchat Content Studio. That also faded across the industry.

Fortunately, this forced us to speed up our plan to flatten our revenue model by focusing on content monetization, events and building of our own products like SuperFam. We’re still not where we want to be on a % basis but we are headed in the right direction.

In addition, we are in re-negotiations with Underdog to extend our partnership with them. The initial offer came in at PRIVATE.

Other Challenges Faced in 2023

Verification - We were hopeful to be verified across all platforms in 2023. With some additional press and establishing connections at IG and Tik Tok, this can be accomplished in 2024.

Snapchat Studio - We had huge revenue targets for our Snap Studio in ‘23. Then Snapchat shifted their entire model. It resulted in companies like Wave cutting up to 40% of their staff. Snap studio did nothing for us from a content perspective but was a good revenue driver. That well has mostly dried up.

Shutting down SBS YT and Snapback Podcast - I spoke about the win of ‘shutting down a 600K channel’ but shutting down that channel is still a major challenge. In addition, we made the tough decision to permanently pause the Snapback Sports Podcast. This podcast was co-hosted with Abe Granoff. It reached #1 on the charts in 2018 and had so many incredible guests. We will never forget the pod, the first original content we ever did at SBS.

Snapback Kitchen - We have officially ended Snapback Kitchen and our relationship with Popchew. Interests were not aligned right now. We’re not at a place where resources are rich enough to give SBK the full attention and time it needs. It’s still something I seriously believe in but wrong time wrong place at the moment!