Here's to 2024 - SID Sports Wrapped
Recapping a great year and looking ahead
First of all, thank you to everyone for joining SID Sports in 2024. Our subscriber base grew massively over our second calendar year, going from 55 at the turn of the year to 168 now. We’ve more than tripled our readership and I’m eternally thankful for you all. Thank you for spending your time with someone like me and letting me into your routines.
This was a great year for all of us, and I wanted to take some time to recap our five biggest posts of the year.
April 10 - So you want to start a super league?
I’ll be honest, I was really surprised by this one hitting top five status with over 200 views. For some reason, you all kept coming back to this one, so thank you!
If you remember way back in April when we were battling through the offseason, a group called College Sports Tomorrow floated a 70-team upper division in tandem with the proposed House v. NCAA settlement that has since been preliminarily approved (I’ve written about that a ton too).
This was a fun one to write, especially since realignment articles have done well here.
June 5 - College Football 25 realignment ideas
If you know me, you know I love two things: College Football video games and alternate historical scenarios. How better to marry that then through three wild and wacky realignment ideas for College Football 25!
We looked at three here: a historical-based one, the earlier College Sports Tomorrow proposal, and a true regional conference that has no historical regard.
This was a ton of fun to write and look at, and Reddit sure ate it up. Maybe we’ll do more stuff like this in the future?
June 25 - The most cursed college football stadiums
What’s better offseason content than looking at the stadiums that have some kind of evil mojo. Cue the Jordan-Hare noises.
And, to be fair, some of these stadiums delivered this year. Again, cue the Jordan-Hare noises against Texas A&M this season, though Texas A&M turned out to also lose to USC, but who cares, right?
October 9 - From flag football star to high school basketball champion
When I was working as an SID, my favorite thing to do was highlight and feature student athletes that I was working with. By extension, this was my favorite article to write this year.
Izzy’s story is one that I got to see up close, going to high school with her, but she’s gone to heights beyond our imagination. She has a great, winding story to her path to the IFAF World Championships through basketball and youth football as a girl that I think everyone enjoyed.
November 5 - 2024 UEC Media Guide
Kicking off a new series is scary, especially jumping into a new area entirely with gaming videos as opposed to our normal long-form writing content.
But, wow, you guys. You really enjoyed this. And I enjoyed making it. It’s fun getting to flex my SID muscles a bit and making the UEC Dynasty series has been a ton of fun. There’s been some technological hiccups along the way, but 2025 has a lot in store for the Bighorns.
But those five aren’t all. I got to work on the inside of an ESPN+ production. I interviewed lawyers about lawsuits and legal regulations as they came up. I talked to the marketing department at the University of Toledo about their new social media initiatives. It was because of this newsletter and you all that I got most of those experiences. So thank you all for making this possible.
What’s in store in 2025?
Great question, bold text header guy!
Well, first, we’re going to crown the first champion in the 12-team playoff era. That, my friends, should be incredibly exciting.
But after that, I’ve got some big plans. First of all, taking a few weeks off in January and February to recharge and just let the creative juices take a rest.
Once that’s done, I’ll be back in it! We’ll probably target one-two articles each week in the offseason and then gear right back up for kickoff in August.
What am I hoping to do during that time? Another great question!
First and foremost, I’m really wanting to get rolling on UEC. I know it’s been sporadic with the Bighorns and their uploads, so hopefully that will stabilize out with football over. Adding in changing editing softwares and a new computer and we get where we are now. That’s all settled now, though!
Second, I’m working on a new series that could be both a written and video essay format. We’ll see how it shakes out. I think you’ll really enjoy it! I’m planning on six parts spread across six weeks.
I’m also hoping to jump into some collaborations and joint articles. I know SID Sports already has one partner in Three-Point Stance and we’re cooking up some ideas. Maybe some other things are in the works? We’ll have to see.
To close up all these thoughts, 2024 was a great year for me here at SID Sports. I made some great friends here on Substack that I love to read and engage with online. We grew our SID Sports Subscriber base a ton and welcomed a ton of people into the fold. Obviously, as a creator, I’m hoping to grow that in 2025. But I also want to build community.
That brings me to my final and most important thought: What do you want to see from SID Sports? What content do you love? What content do you want to see more of or less of? Let me know in the comments so we can keep SID Sports growing and getting better and better in 2025!
Enjoy and appreciate the work you do, sir! I could do without the Tyler Warren haterade but that’s splitting hairs 🤣
Excited to see what 2025 brings and congrats on the big growth in 2024 — that’s awesome and well-deserved!
I've really enjoyed reading your content and love the idea of the UEC dynasty. I would be interested in hearing from someone who works in compliance at a university to see how NIL, etc. is impacting their department and job responsiblities.