10 Thoughts on the Future of Normal Sport

Hey again,

If you’re new, welcome, my name is Kyle Porter and I appreciate you choosing to read the Normal Sport newsletter. If you’ve been around for a while, thank you. As our illustrator, Jason Page, pointed out recently, patrons who have just entered the gates should politely speed walk to their desired spot, and we apologize if there are already chairs on the front row.

Even though we have pumped out 116 newsletters over the last 18 months — all of which you can read for free right here — this is (finally) our official launch week

I will be writing about these four things before we get back to some more regularly scheduled programming (i.e. giraffes and pool noodles) next week.

Monday: Big News
Tuesday: Leaving CBS
Today: Future of Normal Sport
Friday: Q&A with Rory McIlroy on taking risks and what it means to care

Along the way, we will be doing a handful of giveaways. Here’s our first one: A custom Scotty Cameron putter with a Seamus-built Normal Sport headcover.

Instructions for entry can be found here on Twitter (and you can enter up to 10 times!). If you’re not on Twitter, don’t believe in Twitter and can’t participate in the giveaway, you can still be eligible by filling out this form.

Psssst: You can enter the giveaway on Insta as well.

Onto the news.

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10 Thoughts on the Future of Normal Sport

At some point just before the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, I started to get a seed of an idea for a ridiculous book project I wanted to write.

My friends and I all spend so much time yelling and laughing about golf on Twitter, and I thought it would be so fun to capture that in some fashion and turn it into a book. This eventually became Normal Sport 1, an illustrated digital book that we sold a few thousand copies of.

Around that time, I reached out to Jason Page, who had at that point been illustrating and designing for all the bespoke, independent golf media places many of you follow (NLU, Shotgun Start and so on). We had followed each other for a while and knew of each other but didn’t really know each other.

I sent him a message that — he only told me this recently — he received while at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater in Lehighton PA (not sure how he remembers this). “I was watching a Back to the Future triple header trilogy,” he said.

Of course.

Anyway, here’s the exchange.

What did you have in mind?

Haha, oh man. What a question. What an open-ended entry point to what eventually became a company marked by a logo that combines a Scottish sheep with the famous monkey side-eye GIF.

What did you have in mind?

What did you have in mind?

Oh you know just the end of a 12-year job that paid very well and provided a lot of comfort to start a business in which I send a newsletter about animals stampeding down golf courses and compare Johnson Wagner to his long-lost cousin, Billy, after he pelts the side of a hill in Jacksonville, Florida with 87 MPH heaters.

What did you have in mind?

I always have a lot of things in my mind. That is probably part of why you’re here, reading a weird newsletter about golf but also sometimes (maybe mostly) not about golf. My mind is rarely devoid of thoughts, ideas and inspiration.

And today, it is so full that I am having a difficult time even functioning, even getting thoughts down on paper. But I’m going to try regardless. I wanted to finish off my portion of writing this week — we’ll get to the Rory Q&A on Friday, which will also be fun — with 10 thoughts on the future of Normal Sport.

Is that a lot? Yes. Could it have been 20,000 words with 200 thoughts? Also yes.

I actually have a half-written, 26K word book with a lot of this in it. My story, my view of media and golf and the world. I’ll try to finish it at some point and publish it. Maybe I’ll call it What did you have in mind?

Let’s get it.

1. My friends give me a hard time because I use the phrase “I think about this all the time” all the time. It’s almost always true, though! There are just always so many interesting things to think about!

One of those things happened in Rome last year when Max Homa hit a big boy putt to keep the champagne on ice. You probably remember the moment.

It was monstrous. If he misses this putt, the U.S. loses the Ryder Cup.

And yes the putt was amazing, but what he said on the NLU pod was even better.

I remember being over that putt saying, You asked for this. You can be nervous, but you asked for this exactly so you better at least relish the opportunity. Matt missed, and I had 7 feet, and I remember saying, ‘You wanted this. Flip the nerves. You’re nervous, but you’re not scared. You asked for this exact moment, and you’re getting it in the biggest way.

Max Homa on NLU

So good!

I turned my brain on. You wanted this, this is a very cool opportunity. I lost full control of my body. I can’t believe watching it that you can’t see my legs shaking. I couldn’t feel anything. My legs were full-blown vibrating like I had 50 phones tied to my legs, and everyone was calling me. It was wild. I watched it last night, and I don’t know how I made it.

That mother****** was right in the middle. It was the best putt ever.

Max Homa on NLU

I feel this right now! You wanted this. You wanted to run your own business. You wanted to write how you write. You can be nervous and scared and anxious, but you asked for this, and this is a very cool opportunity. I feel every word.

Here’s what I wrote after I sold my Oklahoma State website in 2020.

Damn, I wanted the ball after big games. I wanted to write really great stuff both because it’s a rush to know you’re performing at the highest level you’re capable of performing at and also because you know others will feel the same.

PFB

I know that my worth is not dependent upon whether or not I produce great stuff for you to read and consume, but I absolutely do love getting the ball and the feeling of knowing the people (at least some of them!) are looking forward to the thoughts or takes. It is, at least from a professional standpoint, one of my favorite things, and Max probably summed it up better than I ever could.

2. There are three things about mainstream media that have bothered me for a long time that I can finally discuss in more detail.

The first is that it is very formal. This is not a criticism per se, it’s just not how we usually communicate. I think you can be just as effective while being informal, funny and irreverent. I tried to sum that up in our mission statement: Our mission is to use humor and humanity to make the daily fan’s personal experience of golf feel meaningful.

The second is that the trend toward AI content creation is almost painfully obvious. So much of what is done at MSM outlets is at least tangential to the SEO game. Again, this is not a criticism, but AI can play those games better than any human ever could (or would want to).

The third is the race to the bottom in terms of revenue. I was trying to read something on the Hollywood Reporter the other day, and this is what my phone looked like.

That’s 32 words and three ads. A 3:1 ratio. Like … what are we doing?

Again, this is not a criticism of any single place. It’s just that the entire model is so broken. And while it cannot and will not be fixed by any single independent outlet, I’m hopeful that Normal Sport will be able to generate partnership revenue in a way that makes sense for everyone — publisher, reader and partner — involved.

Many places do this well. I think NLU probably does it best. I’ve written about this a lot, but NLU has published several Titleist ads this year that nobody viewed as Titleist ads. That’s elite publisher-product-market fit. An extraordinary intersection, and I think there are so many opportunities there for Normal Sport as well.

The key is whether you can be disciplined enough to pass on the places that are obviously transactional, which erodes trust with your audience and partner with the places that build it instead. It’s tougher than it looks!

3. On that note, part of our business plan involves membership. This is probably not surprising given that I have hinted at it and maybe even mentioned it in the past. We have been working on this behind the scenes for a while and are almost ready to roll it out.

The most difficult part for me has been figuring out the balance of what to keep free and what to charge for. My initial thought was to offer a Wikipedia or NPR model where the 10 percent (or whatever) of power users pay to keep it free for all. That is certainly part of the benefit, but I also want to over-deliver value to folks who are paying Normal Sport members.

I have been heavily influenced by a couple of places regarding this topic, including Stratechery, Tangle News, Ethan Strauss and Packy McCormick, among many, many others.

Revenue for a venture like this — you may or may not care about this! — is almost always three-fold: Membership, advertising and products. We plan on engaging all three. But the exciting part for me is that I believe having a strong newsletter base is paramount for launching well … anything.

Want to start a once-a-month Ryder Cup pod called “I Can’t Hear You”? You have 14K people ready to receive it. Want to launch a kids golf magazine tantamount to the Golfer’s Journal but for 11 year olds? You have the folks who can support it.

I am excited about newsletters for a million reasons, and these are just a few of them.

4. The sheep logo, I don’t get it?

You may have seen our new logo. If you haven’t, there it is.

We have always struggled with a logo. Our initial smiley was good but never great. It was serviceable, but nobody was in love with it.

Earlier this year, I had a friend take a swing at seeing if he could make something with some soul, and he got us closer with the sheep below. Then told Jason over the last month, let’s try to mash up a sheep with that monkey side eye GIF.

This is what he came up with initially.

Which, tbh, is kinda sick. We eventually got it to a cleaner place with the idea being that even golf’s origins — folks smashing objects among a bunch of sheep who were just trying to graze in their own fields and mind their own business — were less than normal.

After that smiley face which we all kind of liked and kind of thought was good, we stumbled into something that we all love, and it has been one of the things I have heard about the most from folks this week (which is a thrill!).

Merch is coming!

5. One of the other things I’ve heard: Where is the Normal Sport pod?!

It’s something I have been hesitant to jump into for a lot of reasons. The first is that podcasting and being on camera is something I have done, but it’s not my favorite thing to do. I can do it, and I understand the value of it for partners and followers, but the thing I love is stringing words together. I love writing.

CJ Chilvers, whose stuff is so good, wrote about the idea of text vs. the world recently.

I don’t think text is always the answer. It’s about clarity. If you can get the point across in a sentence or two, you’ll win over the algorithmically-incentivized, bloated, 10-minute YouTube video, or the outrage-fueled 30-second video that only exists to get you to click on the next outrage-fueled 30-second video.

Get to the point. Be useful. Text can win.

CJ Chilvers

I know that podcasts and video are important, it’s just that 1. I believe staying focused is more important and 2. I’m willing to bet on the 4,000-year-old medium over the ones that are 15 or 20 years old.

6. One of the phrases we use a lot around here is Easter Eggs Everywhere. You’ll find them all over the place because Jason and I are constantly competing to top each other. An example: Jason made an illustration for a recent newsletter mocking the LIV rings with the QR codes in them that Rahm was asked about.

But Jason’s QR code actually worked and took you … elsewhere. It’s the type of thing we enjoy doing because we know it will make the other person laugh, and it is emblematic of what I think you’ll see a lot of at Normal Sport.

7. Wait, you keep saying “we.” That’s right. There is a team of four of us.

You know me. I have introduced you to Jason, who does all the illustrations. After the President’s Cup wives cooked up some, uh, interesting art of their husbands, Jason thought it would be fun to follow their lead. So here are our shots.

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And let me introduce you to David Hill, who runs our business operations so Jason and I can cook and Jeff Smith, who built our website and helps with a lot behind the scenes, including branding and strategy.

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I love these guys and have loved working with them over the last 18 months on this side project that is now without a safety net.

8. One of my low-key favorite parts of this week has been hearing from you guys. Jeff built us a thank you for subscribing page, which people get taken to after signing up for the newsletter (again, Easter Eggs Everywhere) and on that page we ask about what the least normal thing you’ve ever seen on a golf course is. I thought we might get a few submissions, but we got hundreds and hundreds of them. And the ones I’ve read are absolutely incredible. Two quick examples.

So thank you for sharing. I love hearing from you guys and about your normal moments.

I used to think that the best way to get new subscribers was by offering them free content (more of hearing from me). But after this week, I think the best way to get new subscribers is by telling them that you want to hear their stories.

Also, this seven-day graph has me pretty pumped.

9. Ben Thompson once described Stratechery as his journal about the world … that everyone else gets to read. That is very much how I view the Normal Sport newsletter.

Some of the best advice I have ever received was something along the lines of write to one person. I normally keep the same person in mind and write to that person. I’m trying to figure out different parts of golf by writing jokes and insights to this person via email, and it just so happens that a bunch of other people can read them as well.

I find it to be easier to write to one person than thinking about trying to write to thousands.

This is an aside, but it’s also more intimate, which is something I also love about newsletters. My Twitter posts are sometimes sandwiched between @BluePatriot120439 opining about how the downfall of the Electoral College was actually predicted in Revelation 14 and, like, a trailer for the new season of Bluey.

Email though? I’m between an encouraging note from your mom and an update from your overseas friend who is keeping a blog. And you’re the only one who can see it so it feels like I am just writing to you. Which is amazing.

10. The Homer. You’ve all seen it. Carlton Fisk in the 1975 World Series, waving and willing that baseball back into fair territory at Fenway.

Here’s what New Yorker writer, Roger Angell — who reportedly avoided the Fisk replay on TV because he wanted to preserve the memory of having seen it in person (which is sick!) — wrote about the experience in Fenway that night.

What I do know is that this belonging and caring is what our games are all about; this is what we come for. It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look—I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost.

Almost.

What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring—caring deeply and passionately, really caring—which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved.

Naïveté—the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball—seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

My friend KVV and I talked about that quote a lot at the 2022 PGA Championship. That was the PGA Championship where Shane Ryan posited that the crazy high beer prices were a false flag because the PGA wanted to distract us from the fact that it made the holes on the greens smaller than usual. Normal stuff.

Anyway, we talked about that quote a lot, and I wrote about it in our third newsletter ever. Rory (not Sabbatini) contacted me after reading what I wrote, and we talked for a bit about how great our desire was and is to be in the business of caring and how costly that can sometimes be.

That moment was formative for me because it helped encourage me toward all of this. You can certainly be in the business of caring when you work in legacy media. I have plenty of friends who are. But you cannot be in the business of caring as deeply as you must be when you’re in charge of the thing that writes your paycheck.

I’ve lived that life before, and, for better or worse, I desire it again. Though it is as arduous as it is wonderful. To be clear, we’re not solving the world here. We’re just covering golf and making what we hope is good enough stuff for you (or our partners) to purchase it at a fair price. I don’t want that to be more high-minded than it needs to be.

But I do want you to know that the engine behind all of this is that I love life and golf has engendered within me an even deeper love of both life as well as the people that I’m around. My wife says it like this: You’re not really a golf writer. You write about life, golf is just the vehicle. The business of caring.

The first time she said that, it staggered me. I did not understand. I didn’t even really agree. But the more I thought about it, the truer I realized it was.

What did you have in mind?

It makes me think of the famous Djokovic quote.

“I can carry on playing at this level because I like hitting the tennis ball.”

I like writing the words.

Thank you for reading them.