Special Edition | March 10, 2025

At Normal Sport, we have tried to make a habit of sharing where we’re at with our business, how we’re feeling about our business and what we see on the horizon.

That’s (a bit of) what today’s email is about.

For some of you, this can be too naval gazing. I understand that. It can feel naval gazing from our perspective. But I also know two things.

1. The first is that for the other people and businesses I follow, these are often the updates or posts I’m (for whatever reason) most interested in.

2. The second is that Jason often tells me to be as transparent as possible about why we’re sharing. Show your work, so to speak. And the reason we like to show our work is because of No. 1. I know that if this stuff interests me in other people’s businesses, it probably interests at least some of you about our business.

So that’s why we share it. If you dip out until Big Jay’s presser notes later this week or until Johnson Wagner starts warming up in the bullpen, that’s OK too. I listed our PLAYERS schedule below, too, so check it out before you bounce.

March Giveaway

Confession: I love giving stuff away. I hate the logistics of it, but I love the reality of it. To read the reaction from our guy, Trevor, who won the trip to Ireland was amazing.

This month, we’re giving away two of these babies from one of our new sponsors, Turtlebox.

It is — it would be difficult to overstate this — a tremendous product for pretty much anything. I’ve been using mine for batting practice with the 11U baseball team I’m coaching (BP setlist is Forrest Frank radio), which I don’t believe was its intended use but it is 👌👌👌 for that very thing.

How do you enter?

Do nothing. Be subscribed to the newsletter and you’re entered. That’s it. We’ll announce a winner in next week’s newsletter.

Last Month’s Winners

After we gave away a Meridian putter in January, we did our big Ireland trip at the end of February/beginning of March, but we also had a few other newsletter winners. Here they are.

• Ireland trip: Trevor H.
• Box of Normal Sport merch: J.H.
• Free annual membership: Dave F.
• Seamus headcover: Matthew H.

Media Appearances

I have been making the rounds in our weird little sliver of the internet, and in doing so I’ve discovered going on other people’s podcasts and telling my story and the Normal Sport story is more enjoyable than I thought it would be.

Here’s a sampling from the last six weeks.

• Kyle on the Bag Drop with Matt Considine — Possibly my favorite in terms of telling the Normal Sport story and receiving thoughtful questions from somebody I think is very smart and also cares deeply about the future of the game.

• Kyle on Granite State — A pod about golf in New Hampshire (normal sport), but we talked about all things NS and business.

• Kyle on The Wedge — Written Q&A that includes why I’m still so excited about this industry.

Our 2025 Partners

These newsletters and this business would not be possible without the tremendous brands we have partnered with in 2025. Now that we are more or less sold out of our ad inventory for the year, I’m pumped to introduce them to you.

If I’m being honest, I could not have imagined this lineup six months ago, much less a year ago. I’m staring at it (literally and illustrated-ly), and am so excited that these are the companies that have chosen to take a chance on us.

Here is the philosophy we have landed on with our partners: Find companies who make good products that we personally love to use and have great stories that we personally love to tell. 

We believe every business we have partnered with in 2025 fits that exact criteria, and we’re stoked to tell their stories alongside ours throughout the year.

PLAYERS Schedule

Monday, Mar. 10 — This update post
Tuesday, Mar. 11 — Regular Normal Sport email (free)
Wednesday, Mar. 12 — Pressers recap, picks (paid)
Thursday, Mar. 13 (night) — Thoughts on R1 (paid)
Friday, Mar. 14 (night) — Thoughts on R2 (paid)
Saturday, Mar. 15 (night) — Thoughts on R3 (paid)
Sunday, Mar. 16 (night) — Thoughts on event (paid)

As you can see — and as I have tried to note along the way — a lot of our coverage during Players, the four majors and the Ryder Cup will be for paid members.

I think this is our very best stuff, and while we will give bits and pieces at the top away like we have been doing on the Thursday posts I write, more than half will be for paid members.

In other words …

There’s never been a better time to become a paid member of Normal Sport!

Also: I will send the next 10 folks who become paid members a little gift in the mail.

This post will continue for Normal Sport members below, and includes …

• A sneak peek at our first big merchandise order (!)

• A detailed look on the health of the Normal Sport business.

• A handful of things I’ve been learning of late.

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If you are reading this, that means you are a Normal Sport member. I write a bit more in depth from here on out about our business because I view you as someone who is …

1. Helping us build that business and …
2. Probably interested in business.

Three Four Takeaways

Here are three things I’ve been considering as it relates to our business and my personal entrepreneurial journey.

1. We have stalled in ad sales subscriber growth: Like I said earlier, we are virtually sold out of ads for 2025, which was a nice change from last time I wrote this update. However, the same thing is happening on the subscriber side now. Are there really only 15,000 sickos in the world? I’m dubious! But that’s the number we’ve been at for a while now, and while I know there are experiments we can run to change that and build it up, the interim can be frustrating.

2. Simple is usually the answer: That’s one thing I’m learning. It can be easy (even attractive) to overcomplicate things to make yourself feel better about [gestures at all the very important things I’m doing]. But the right answer to problems, I have found, is usually the simplest one. For example: I could set up 22 systems and if/then statements to trick people to joining our newsletter. OR …. I could just get on Twitter and say, We have this cool golf newsletter, want to be part of it? 

3. Be a power user of your product: This one is perhaps obvious, but not everyone does it. If you’re starting something, you should be a power user of that thing. I am on our website and checking out the details of our welcome newsletters and all of that constantly. Partly because I want it all to look nice and inviting but partly because I know that’s what other people are doing, and it helps me help their experience.

4. Being in the mix rules: I have said this probably 100 times and will likely say it 1,000 more. There is nothing better than being in the mix. I don’t mean anything specific by that. Another term for it is being around the rim. In the game, in the arena. It’s so much easier to be on the sidelines, but so much more worthwhile to be in the mix.

Gear Preview

We just submitted our first big merch order, both because many of you have asked for it and also because we love having stuff to give away (in this instance, our own stuff).

I’ve posted some photos below of what that order looked like.

Not all of these will get made or end up looking like they do on here, but we wanted to give you a little preview of some of our first products to get Norman out into the world.

We will be working with both big and tiny companies to craft our merch and will share it with you all in the same way we share the craft of our text and illustrations.

Oh yeah, and we’ve named the sheep, Norman.

Send any feedback you have!

Business Traj

Here is our lifetime subscriber graph.

See above for subscriber stalling. Not worth losing sleep over but definitely something I think about.

And here is our lifetime paid membership graph.

This is encouraging. Especially since our goal for the year was to get to 1,000.

Purse Size

One thing I care a lot about as it relates to the health of our business is how much runway we have. Here’s an estimate of what that looks like. Runway for our business in total months is the y-axis on the left side. If we stopped making any revenue tomorrow, that’s how many months we could stay in business.

This is the graph I care about the most.

As my entrepreneur friend told me recently, Just don’t run out of money. I am glad to say that after five (!) months of doing this, we have not yet run out of money.

OK, that’s it for this month.

If you have any business-related questions (or advice!) that relate to this weird little golf company, I would be happy to answer them in a future version of this newsletter. Just email me back by responding to this email.

Thank you for being a Normal Sport member. I’m grateful for it.

Kyle Porter
Founder | Normal Sport