You're a die-hard sports fan trying to keep up with your favorite teams and athletes. 

Your TV streaming bill keeps climbing, games are on at 3 AM because of time zones, and your calendar is so packed you can barely catch highlights. 

Sound familiar?

That's exactly the pain point EssentiallySports kept hearing about from their audience. With a dedicated team of beat writers, content strategists, and editors covering over 14 sports, EssentiallySports was already connecting with millions of fans each month. As one of the top 10 sports media publishers in the U.S., they had built something rare—real relationships with readers who kept coming back, day after day.

However, for years, digital sports publishers operated in the shadow of platforms and algorithms—optimizing for feeds, clicks, and ever-changing distribution logic. No matter how loyal your readers were, you were always at the mercy of someone else’s platform. 

EssentiallySports broke that cycle.

With a decade of editorial expertise and a massive daily audience, the team made a strategic shift: stop chasing reach through platforms and start building direct, owned relationships with fans.

The idea wasn’t just to send newsletters—it was to reimagine the role email could play in sports media. A high-quality, high-frequency, zero-CAC engine that surrounded fans with the content they actually cared about. No algorithms. No ad spend. Just relevance, loyalty, and scale.

“We had spent years building one of the most loyal sports audiences on the internet,” says Suryansh Tibarewal, Co-Founder of EssentiallySports.

“But we were operating in an environment where platforms controlled distribution. We realized that to truly serve our fans and scale sustainably, we needed a model where we owned the relationship.”

The idea was to create a network of sports newsletters, each hyper-focused on a passionate niche—from NASCAR to tennis to golf to NFL. “Beehiiv was the right platform to enable this,” added Suryansh.

The first test was Lucky Dog on Track—a daily NASCAR newsletter built for one of the most underserved fanbases in American sports.

Reaching 1,000 subscribers happened fast—and it wasn’t by accident.

“We already had a passionate, engaged daily readership on site,” explains Varun Khanna, Head of Growth & Business at EssentiallySports, who also leads the newsletter vertical.“When we launched Lucky Dog on Track, we didn’t need to convince them to care—we just had to deliver the right format with the right voice.”

No paid promotions. No short-term gimmicks. Just consistent, personality-driven content, embedded across high-intent pages and distributed intelligently through organic channels. The early feedback we got was overwhelming. Replies like “Finally someone’s talking about this stuff” and “This is what I’ve been looking for” poured in. Engagement soared. It was clear: fans wanted this.

He added, “we focused on quality first — sharp writing, deep insight, and content tailored to what fans were missing in the mainstream: stories, breakdowns, and news that spoke directly to them.” 

Once the first 1,000 came in, the system scaled fast. Today, EssentiallySports runs multiple newsletters across niche sports verticals, with over a million subs today.

“We built our media operation around the sports fan—not the algorithm,” says Suryansh. “That meant understanding what each niche needed and building tailored products around that.”

From Break Point for tennis fans to Essentially Golf to The Huddle for NFL fans and more, each newsletter feels like a product, not just an email blast.

The team had experimented with newsletters before—but most platforms weren’t built for editorial nuance. beehiiv was different.

Tibarewal connected with beehiiv’s co-founder Tyler Denk in a close-knit founder mastermind—an invite-only group of builders focused on audience-first companies. The conversation affirmed the direction EssentiallySports was already leaning toward: building direct, ownable relationships with its most loyal fans.

“What really stuck with me from that conversation,” says Suryansh Tibarewal, Co-Founder of EssentiallySports, “was the belief that brands should own their power users. At a time when most platforms are creating more distance between the brand and its audience, beehiiv was helping build in the exact direction we wanted to go.”

beehiiv allowed them to:

The scoreboard doesn't lie: EssentiallySports + beehiiv = A winning combination that's redefining how sports media connects with fans.

And perhaps most importantly: the newsletter is now a morning habit for thousands of sports fans—a direct line between content and community.

When asked about their favorite beehiiv feature, Khanna doesn't hesitate: "One of our favorite beehiiv features is the seamless integration of polls combined with powerful audience segmentation."

It's not just about engagement—it's about intelligence. The polls drive interaction and feedback, while the segmentation allows them to create smart, behavior-driven groups for tailored follow-ups.

"beehiiv's segmentation tools give us the flexibility to deliver the right content to the right people—effortlessly."

EssentiallySports keeps its revenue strategy diversified and authentic:

The key?

Everything feels native and drives results because it's genuinely relevant to their highly engaged communities.

Beyond the impressive growth metrics, there is something else that has exceeded expectations: pure operational efficiency.

"What's exceeded our expectations the most is how much beehiiv simplifies the entire newsletter workflow," Khanna explains. "We were pleasantly surprised by how much time we save each week—freeing us up to focus more on content and strategy instead of technical headaches."

For a team managing multiple newsletters across different sports, that time savings translates directly to better content and stronger growth.

For aspiring newsletter creators, Khanna's advice is crystal clear: "If you're thinking of starting a newsletter today, my top advice is to really focus on finding your product-market fit. Understand your audience and the market size before diving in."

His secret weapon? A/B testing. Lots of it.

"Use A/B testing extensively to learn what resonates—and that's where beehiiv shines with its easy-to-use testing tools. This approach helps you grow smarter and build something your readers truly want."

In a world of fragmented attention and fleeting platform reach, building an owned audience isn’t just smart—it’s survival. 

beehiiv didn’t just power a newsletter launch—it became the foundation for a new kind of sports media model.

See how beehiiv can help you move fast, stay lean, and scale smart—just like EssentiallySports did.