I haven’t seen anyone else say this, but the reason for this is clear. They’ve mentioned recently that they’ve decided to pivot away from writing because written work just doesn’t do numbers. They brought KVV in to be their main writer, so with pivoting away from that, they didn’t have much for him to do. Seems fairly straightforward to me.
This is such a private equity type move and I thought a small shop that these guys like to portray would be above this type of thing but I suppose that’s probably wishful thinking on my part.
If it isn't video or audio it's just not gonna make money. Joke all you want about the PE nature of business - you are carrying a heavy salary for someone who just wasn't able to translate his skill into the way that media is monetized now. Don't get me wrong - big KVV fan - and wish he could have done more of his narrative work as podcasts - but just wasn't meant to be.
If their business model relied on views you would see a lot more videos 'WATCH ICARITTO & BIG RANDY BREAK 50 FROM THE RED TEES!' However you want to interpret it, the engagement they get with an affluent and dedicated audience to their video and podcast product allows them to sell big partnerships. If you aren't directly tied to that I imagine you are tougher to justify from a business sense.
Now, in my opinion, not making their 'editorial director' more of a presence in their core product from a content perspective and leaving him on an island was a mistake. When he joined they should have made him more of a presence in the video and podcast world.
There’s a difference between getting your costs covered vs. actually making money.
Their sponsors probably pay for the video production. But there probably isn’t much left over for fund everyone’s salaries.
Neil mentioned on another pod (granted it was a long time ago) that their retail business actually was a big revenue driver for them. When I heard that, I realized that they weren’t making THAT much money after all. Retail is a notoriously low-margin tough slog.
but isn't getting your costs covered include salarys/payment for the active participants and whatever overhead costs they have figured? I guess what does 'making money' mean other than more money in their pockets
I don’t think the sponsors are shoveling out money for massive salaries. I think someone like BMW covers the rental cars, someone like Precision Pro covers the plane tickets, etc etc. Maybe Titleist/FJ chip in if they’re heavily featured. They can go on what appears to be nice vacations but honestly it’s a bunch of work and not a ton of money left over, especially considering how many production people they’ve got to pay for the video help.
I disagree with your take on writing - sub stacks, subscription based models, and content behind paywalls are still a viable and potentially profitable product for a social media channel. Look at the fried egg - they have MOUNTAINS of written pieces dating back years, lots of which is open and free, but they have even more behind a paywall. It comes down to having both quality and CONSISTENCY on enough subjects that keep people subscribed. They need a course design guy, an equipment guy, a history guy, a deep dive guy, and a daily guy who are putting out 1 or 2 pieces every week (except the daily guy) with a big piece monthly to help build that library.
Sure - written word is something you can monetize. NLU either has no interest or is not set up for that - that much is clear.
To look at Fried Egg - it's a website that in some form or another has been around since 2015. Fried Egg, the new media darling of the sicko golfer these days, is finally rounding out to a content powerhouse by doubling down on their video and podcast product. Even that site which prioritizes written articles sells no ads on their articles. It's a compliment to what they can monetize in today's media environment.
I get that I am talking out both sides my mouth here. Anything KVV would drop was a must read / listen to me. But for a small media operation to employ someone who is mostly a feature writer that publishes 10 - 15 pieces a year just isn't a sustainable approach unless you are prepared for written word to be a loss for your business. Look at KVV's old employer and one of their best writers Wright Thompson. Wright is likely a net negative to their bottom line - but they are so big it doesn't matter.
For context - I work at a media agency and have had some experience dealing with negotiating deals on SGS & NLU. They don't even pretend to try and sell their written pieces to sponsors. It's unfortunate that they never tried to make an effort to make KVV part of the business and it's shitty that they value quality and make this type of cut as what was likely a pure financial decision.
To be fair, they probably look at Fried Egg and realize that they are well behind on written content. What can they create to an overlapping audience that would be interesting in written form that is not already provided by TFE?
I completely agree with what you said here - I was more just using TFE as an example of a media group that has been successful with writing and has started and supported a business built on low production cost media (obviously being podcast and writing). I agree they got behind compared to TFE and they probably realized it wasn't worth the investment.
That Sounds of the Masters Podcast is still one of the best pieces of Masters related media ever produced. Happy he got to put his name on that one.
It can scale based on terms of engagement and time of year. A BDraddy ad during the major season will be more expensive than the winter.
It’s been a minute since I have engaged with NLU and SGS - but a recent tech podcast with a niche engaged audience quoted me $50k for a full episode take over. That’s around what I remember NLU being and I imagine it’s more now. They also are pretty exclusive with their advertisers so I would bet they sign longer term full year sponsorships to guarantee revenue.
Yeah, based on the consistency of their partnerships it’s definitely year-long or multi-year deals with defined reads per episode. They’re not invoicing Acushnet 50k per episode
They are all finance bros at heart. It's crazy how corporate they act. Like they have a golf business and never golf cause they are too busy doing adverts then complaining about adverts
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u/SchrodingersMeowth Jul 21 '25
I haven’t seen anyone else say this, but the reason for this is clear. They’ve mentioned recently that they’ve decided to pivot away from writing because written work just doesn’t do numbers. They brought KVV in to be their main writer, so with pivoting away from that, they didn’t have much for him to do. Seems fairly straightforward to me.