Interview with Matt Brown from "Extra Points with Matt Brown"

Today’s post is my recent interview with Matt Brown, regarding his newsletter Extra Points with Matt Brown.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Matt Brown, and I'm a sportswriter living in Chicago, IL. Prior to launching Extra Points, I ran the college team blogs for SB Nation for seven years, and before that, did a bunch of jobs that had nothing to do with journalism. I wrote a book about college football historical What If moments, and am passionate about the intersection of business, politics and history with college athletics. When I'm not writing, I'm making ugly furniture in my garage woodshop, trying to build terrible computer games, or trying to improve my terrible running times. 

How would you describe your newsletter?

Extra Points covers the off-the-field stuff that shapes college sports. It isn't a newsletter that breaks down what happened during the college basketball game, or what Alabama's running back depth chart looks like. It tries to understand how Alabama's athletic department makes money, spends money, and fits into the bigger picture institutional goals of the school. It publishes four days a week, and mixes original reporting with analysis. 

Why did you decide to publish on Substack?

I'm a sportswriter. I came into this knowing a fair amount about how to write, but very little about web design, running a small business, e-commerce, or any of the other important parts of making this whole enterprise work. I wanted to pick a CMS that was clearly built for people like me....writers, not marketers or developers. I wanted to focus on writing, and learn about all that other stuff later. 

What has your experience with your newsletter been like?

It's been up and down. I love the content  and my beat, but I started Extra Points because I got laid off from Vox...it was a project born out of necessity, rather than just creative impulse. So it's been a mix of everything...terrifying, frustrating, exhilarating, deeply personally rewarding, and more. After about a year of doing this full time, I'm both pleased with where I am, and also completely exhausted. 

What have you liked most about your experience on Substack?

I really like the people behind Substack. I was named a Substack fellow last year, and got to work with their management team a little more closely over the past several months, and I really do think their heart is in the right place. I like that I haven't had to worry much about payment processing or web design, and I'm working with people who share similar drive and values about online publishing. I've  also enjoyed getting to know folks who publish other newsletters, and becoming more active in this publishing community. This is still a pretty new space and we're all learning from each other. 

What have you liked least about your Substack experience?

Once you reach a certain size, you get to a point where you end up paying Substack a *lot* of money for a product that just isn't best in class from a tech perspective. There's no clean way to do a referral program. Substack doesn't integrate well with Zapier or most other third party analytics or app tools. Most of the newsletters basically look the same. And then you're paying $300, $400 bucks a month for it. If your business hopes to earn revenue from streams beyond reader subscriptions, once you reach like, 3K MRR, I think it becomes harder to justify sticking with Substack until the product functionality improves. 

How have you let people know about your newsletter?

I have a decently sized Twitter following (12.5K), so I get a good number of referrals that way. I've gotten some earned media (Axios, sports talk radio, Washington Post), which has driven eyeballs, and I'm a regular in a daily industry clipping service. I've tried to buy ads (Reddit, industry conference, other newsletters) but honesty, my ROI has been terrible. It's hard to know where to advertise. there aren't that many sports newsletters, and the largest ones charge more than I can afford. 

Is there a post in your newsletter that you consider most memorable, and if so, why?

This is one of my better known posts. It looks at a college football recruiting issue (why doesn't Chicago produce more four-star football players?) from a non-CFB perspective...this is really a story about school choice, urban poverty, population shifts, and more. (https://www.extrapointsmb.com/p/why-doesnt-chicagoland-produce-more)

What do you hope for your newsletter in the foreseeable future?

Honestly, I'm not sure there's a lot more I can do just by myself. I'd love to either sell the newsletter or grow enough for me to hire help. Writing 300K words a year AND working as a sales manager AND podcast host AND audience development editor AND being a dad to two little kids is simply too much work.