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You can now pledge your fealty to this newsletter and our business.
That’s right … welcome to paid membership at Normal Sport.
We are excited/nervous/terrified/curious/many other things about this next step. We spent a long time thinking about it and planning it out. I’m sure it will evolve quite a bit in the months ahead. But it’s also a thrill in the present moment.
After a soft launch on Friday, we now have real, actual paying members of Normal Sport. This is paramount to our business model, and — as longtime content creators — just downright cool for us to experience.
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If you want to skip everything I wrote below about why we’re doing paid membership, what it will look like and how it will operate and just become a member right now, you can do so here.
If this is you ⬇️
Then just click on this button to become a member, or what we’re calling a Normal Sporter.
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If that’s not you — if you’re still curious about what paid membership looks like at Normal Sport — then by all means please carry on …
Here is a question I have been thinking about quite a bit …
Do you think about artificial intelligence a lot?
Do you think about artificial intelligence at all?
Personally, I do not. It is something that rarely crosses my mind. Then every time I see something about it, I think, “Oh, considering my job and the industry I’m in, I should probably think about AI more often than I do.”
But then every time I consider this, another voice in my head says, “Why would you think about AI more? It is the opposite of what you’re trying to do!”
The hilarious and ridiculous overuse of the term “AI” to mean anything and everything that is under the umbrella of intangibility drives me absolutely crazy, but I do know that AI, as a news generating source, is going to be a big part of the future in media, sports or otherwise.
And I am glad for this.
Why in the world would I be glad for [to way oversimplify the future] a robot taking over my job? Because the more robots take over, the less they can compete with what makes our work at Normal Sport compelling.
Though we lead with humor, the connective tissue of this publication is heart.
I suppose this is probably obvious.
We illustrate with heart and write with it, too. We empty the tank in every edition of the newsletter and give little slivers of ourselves away in every artifact that we create. Artificial intelligence will be able to do a lot of things in the future. Heck, it can do a lot of things in the present.
But the one thing it will never be able to do is produce anything with heart. By definition, it cannot do that, which is why I am glad for a future world where AI is prominent.
Because you know the secret as well as I do. We don’t find our tribes online and follow people and publications purely for their efficiency in delivering information.
No, we are searching for connection. We always have been, we always will be.
Here’s how C.S. Lewis said it.
Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening friendship would be something like,
‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’
C.S. Lewis
You too have a Jordan Spieth problem?
You too randomly think about Rory’s missed putts at that Open?
You too would engage in illicit activity for access to the world feed?
I thought I was the only one.
If you identify with any of those statements – and if you’re reading this, I presume you identify with all of them – then Normal Sport is probably a pretty good place for you to set up camp online. A great place for you to hang out.
Also a place that could use your help.
While we are unable to offer you access to the world feed, we can offer you the opportunity to become a Normal Sport member.
It takes a lot – like, a lot a lot – of time, effort and mental energy to put all of this together, but it is time, effort and mental energy that we would not want to spend any other way. It has been, for us, the most fun professional endeavor we have ever undertaken, even if some days feel like this.
We have made headway in partnering with brands that have sponsored our newsletter, but we have seen enough (sometimes unspeakable things!) to know that one stream of revenue is not nearly enough to get a media company rolling.
In a recent survey we put together, 65 percent of you said you would choose to help support Normal Sport monetarily. Sixty-five percent!
This was about as encouraging of a piece of data as I have ever seen.
Tantamount to that one about how the Cat beat the field in 89 consecutive rounds, this number blew me away. That something about golf would connect with 65 percent of you in such a way that you would not only spend your time on it but your money as well is astounding.
And while the stated primary reason for the majority who said they would contribute was simply so Normal Sport would exist into the future — which I appreciate — we do have some value we want to provide you with your membership.
After a lot of debate and thought and consideration about how all of this should look, here’s what we decided on.
There is a specific irony to the fact that artificial intelligence has been created to save everyone time and money and yet people have never been more willing to spend time and money on what they were created for, which is of course a heavy dose of humanity.
And while we will continue to build up over time what we offer with your membership, I presume the primary value proposition will always be some version of me writing with all my heart and Jason illustrating with all of his, in exchange for your support, your membership.
Here’s how one independent site recently put it.
We have learned that there is an audience that is happy to pay for fearless journalism and fun blogs that are written by real human journalists who prioritize the interests of their readers, not search algorithms and AI bots.
404 Media
Here’s how someone else I follow explained it.
The algorithmic ranking concept that Facebook started in the early 2010s has recently been perfected by TikTok.
This … increases the value of deep connection around sophisticated topics, as the profit of mass appeal gets competed down by everyone aping into the same trends.
If you simply don't do that, and you go a completely different, independent way, you'll stand out as particularly interesting to the most sophisticated people.
Not because the tech is incentivizing this approach, but precisely because it's incentivizing everyone else in the other direction.
Jack Murphy
Normal Sport goes in the other direction.
Our mission is to “use humor and heart to make the daily fan’s personal experience of golf feel meaningful.” That will increasingly become an outdated, almost laughable modus operandi.
Maybe it already is.
The social and cultural winds blow anew every few months or years, quartering this way, howling that direction, but there is a truth that undergirds all of time. To get at that truth, let’s end with another question, one perhaps more familiar to this audience.
What is it that you love about Rory McIlroy?
Why is he so captivating?
It’s a question I have considered a lot, probably more than I ever intended to when I entered into this little world.
And in the end, it is not his watery takeaway or astonishing move through the ball. It’s not the bounce nor the levitation nor the screaming in the parking lot.
It’s none of that on an individual level because the truth is that it’s all of it.
And it’s tied together with those tears he cried on that September afternoon while standing next to a lake in a field in rural Wisconsin.
What you love about Rory is the same thing – I hope, I think! – you love about Normal Sport. He is human, and he is not afraid to disclose his humanity.
The truth that undergirds all of time is that we were created to engage in humanity, not to be manipulated by pieces of code.
That’s what this company is striving for and always will.
If you can contribute toward that — toward making that our full-time-all-the-time jobs — by becoming a member, we would be grateful for it.
You can do so right here.
Thank you for reading and following this crazy newsletter and business.
It is such a joy for us to make it for you.
Kyle Porter
Founder | Normal Sport
