Athletes vs Algorithms: The True Value of Athlete-Driven Content
Cody Townsend on investing in humans, diversifying your audience and building a direct relationship with your fans.
I escaped to the beach last week for an escape-the-election-vacation, but I’m back and excited to share part 2 of my discussion with Cody Townsend on the future of individual-driven media brands.
The topic feels particularly timely, given we just went through what is already being called the “podcast election.” As media watchers dissect why there is no Joe Rogan of the left, and the biggest names in traditional media keep jumping ship to go solo, Cody is plowing ahead with FIFTY+, launching new Members-only content on the FIFTY+ website and accompanying public content on YouTube. His content is not political, but it’s the best example you can find in the outdoors world of an independent, personality-driven media brand on the rise.
In the first part of the interview, we discussed the role of athletes, how athletes create trust (or fail to do so), and relationships with brands. Today, we pivot into the strategy of how an athlete-driven media brand exists.
Enjoy, and subscribe to FIFTY+ if you haven’t yet. And to ZeroDraft.
Note: This conversation is lightly edited for clarity and length.
Patrick: Let’s circle back to the media strategy and you fit into the larger ecosystem. You’ve built an incredibly successful YouTube channel, with over 150K subscribers and nearly 21 million total views.
Can an athlete meaningfully monetize their content on YouTube? Or is the business really for you to build an audience on YouTube or Instagram, and the compensation comes through either sponsorships or getting your audience to buy other things?
Cody: Athletes have been monetizing their content for years, it was just in a more traditional form of going to a ski movie premiere and driving around from city to city. For example, right now there's the Powtown Revival, which is a group of athletes and their independent films, and they’re monetizing it. Obviously, I think athletes can monetize their content; the question is just whether you can do it directly online.
Look at my YouTube space as an example. Even if it were straight-through advertisements, I don’t think it would truly succeed. We just don’t have big enough viewership numbers so that the YouTube ad revenue would cover production costs for the episodes we do.
Yes, Mr. Beast can get millions of views per video and the advertising revenue can be great from YouTube. But I have the most successful YouTube winter sports series ever. And if I put advertising on it, all I would have made in the course of five years is $200,000, which doesn’t even pay for one year of filming. So, you know, $200,000 would be great, but I can’t make more movies off that.
I have to realize that as an athlete, I’m competing against Meta and Google.
Patrick: So then it’s about building an audience on multiple channels, then using that audience to support other things, like subscribing to FIFTY+, buying a belt from Arcade, whatever it is that fuels the next phase of your career?
Cody: Yes, it’s like you’re building out a traditional marketing funnel. The top of the funnel is the free stuff online, and you’re trying to move people into where there’s a pay level. That’s kind of what I’m experimenting with. And who knows if it’s going to work? FIFTY+ is really new, and the feedback I’m getting is already really strong, so I’m thinking this is going to work. But who knows, really?
Patrick: Is this balancing act of how athletes make money in their sport versus as content creators new? Or the difference that now it plays out in social media as opposed to movies or magazines?
Cody: Talking in the ski space, because that’s what I understand best, it’s always been a challenge. There was like a five- to ten-year run where it wasn’t that much of a challenge, the golden age of freeskiing, where multi-hundred-thousand-dollar contracts were being handed out like candy to the next athlete who could potentially win X Games. But with the media continuing to splinter, with more and more niche communities being built up within these sports, I think it’s as challenging as it’s ever been.
With brands, I have to realize that as an athlete, I’m competing against Meta and Google because I’m trying to convince brands to give me funds to do what I do so I can reach an audience. They’ll think, "I can reach that same audience by paying Meta a hundred thousand dollars." My argument is that I provide so much more than just what a digital advertisement does. It’s always been challenging, and that’s why I’m trying to experiment with different models to make it a reality.
When you're investing in humans, you're investing in your brand building, your sport, your community and the thing that lacks most in our world these days, which is trust.
Patrick: What you just identified is a dynamic that media brands have faced against Meta and Google for years, which is they could always undercut you on CPM. Media had to convince advertisers, which I think was possible, that when readers experience content in the context of Freeskier magazine or Outside magazine, it’s a better audience because they're in that space. Yes, you're paying more than you might on a Meta product, but it's worth it. That's a tricky pitch. The social advertising platforms are just so good. The advantage that you have as an athlete is that the platforms themselves have pivoted to make it easier for individuals to succeed than for brands to succeed. The algorithms reward individual creators, which puts you in a good spot.
Cody: Yes. And I always look at it like you're only achieving one goal when you are putting a majority of your dollars towards Meta, Google and advertisements, whether click-throughs or conversions are your goal. But it's really fickle, and the fact is, it doesn’t scale. Like, maybe I put in $100,000 and get a three-to-one return on my advertising, but I can’t do that with a million dollars and still get that same return.
It's really cyclical. You might get that three-to-one return for one product or one advertisement, and when you have a new product, it just doesn’t hit with people. Or your brand has faded because the audience doesn’t know who you are, they don’t trust you.
That's why I've always looked at investing in humans as far more sustainable. Sure, you might not get the short-term rewards that direct click-through brings, but when you're investing in humans, you're investing in your brand building, you're investing in your sport, you're investing in a community you're trying to sell to, you're investing in the thing that lacks most in our world these days, which is trust. You're building trust among an audience if you are making marketing investments beyond just giving your money to the biggest corporations in the world.
Patrick: That's a really good point. One of the things that Meta has become really good at is essentially reducing the halo effect of your content. Like you said, if you run a Meta campaign to get clicks, it's really good at generating clicks, and it’s really good at preventing anything else positive from happening. They want to charge you for separate campaigns for each goal. I'm not saying there’s no rising-tide effect, but they're awfully good at making you run a separate campaign for each outcome.
Cody: My own brand participates in a lot of Meta advertising because it does work. But today, one thing I've learned is that what they're best at is squeezing money out of you. They're so big and so smart and so researched on this, they're going to do everything in their power to make it just valuable enough that you're going to want to invest.
But ultimately, there are so many other avenues of marketing, and I think investing in other humans is the only thing that can exponentially scale. Like, you invest in Shane McConkey, you invest in Michael Jordan, hell they made a movie about getting Michael Jordan as an athlete, and that can just absolutely catapult your brand to heights that you could never get through paid digital ads. There’s more risk, but there's much bigger reward in investing in other humans.
Ultimately, as an athlete, as someone who’s trying to survive in this space by creating content, which is almost the main thing I do these days, diversifying your platforms is the single most valuable thing you can do. It's like diversifying an investment portfolio. If you are all-in on Instagram, and that’s your only following, they can turn the throttle off tomorrow for whatever reason. And all of a sudden, your entire career goes out the window.
Ultimately, as an athlete… diversifying your platforms is the single most valuable thing you can do.
So to me, it’s like having a YouTube following, having an Instagram following, having Threads or Twitter, an email list, all that stuff, it insulates you from the whims of an algorithm, the whims of a company, like you were saying, that is all of a sudden prioritizing the individual creator and not the aggregator.
If you're an aggregator, you’re pissed as hell because you were making money on that. What happens if it’s tomorrow, they’re like, "You know, creators are not working out for us at Meta. Let's go back to the aggregators." They could, for sure, do that.
So, yeah, that’s where coming back all the way around to the FIFTY+, I want to be able to communicate with the audience that has graciously blessed me with their clicks and views and interest. And I want to be able to talk directly to them. And I think there’s no more powerful thing than a newsletter or website where I can do that.
Patrick: Invest in humans, build a direct relationship with your fans, and diversify your audience. Three pretty good maxims to build your business on, and a good place to leave it. Thanks so much for the conversation, Cody.