Since joining NBC Sports last summer, Matthew Berry has been involved in a wide variety of their programming. He’s been hosting daily shows on Peacock and a Sunday NFL show carried on Peacock (and partly on CNBC and NBC owned-and-operated affiliates), and has also been contributing to Sunday Night Football pregame show Football Night In America. Most recently, he was added to their coverage lineup for this year’s Kentucky Derby.
Despite his busy schedule at NBC Sports, Berry is also focused on growing his media company, Fantasy Life, which focuses on fantasy sports and sports betting. Berry has secured nearly $2 million in funding to help grow his media company. And according to reports from both Axios and Sportico, the investors for Berry’s media company include Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen, Jacksonville Jaguars owner Tony Kahn and Grammy-award-winning artist John Legend, among several others.
Named after his best-selling book of the same name, Berry launched Fantasy Life in 2020 as a daily newsletter. The newsletter was initially intended to promote Fantasy Life’s merchandise store, but it has since grown into a major operation with 350,000 email subscribers and more than two million unique website visitors per month.
According to Axios, Fantasy Life is a profitable business that generates seven figures of revenue each year. The site makes most of its money from selling ads and sponsorships. It also offers users a variety of free fantasy and betting tools, which are not yet monetized but help to boost engagement. In addition, Fantasy Life produces content for other media partners, such as a weekday show for SiriusXM’s Fantasy Sports Radio channel.
“I have loved every second of the last year with the Fantasy Life team, bootstrapping our way to profitability and can’t wait to continue to build on that success,” Berry, via Sportico.
“We are providing the world’s biggest brands access to some of the most loyal and highly engaged audiences,” Fantasy Life CEO Eliot Crist said in a statement, via Sportico.“With sponsorships, brand integrations, and custom tools, Fantasy Life is focused on developing strategic, long-term partnerships through its content for all users. We are proud of the work we have accomplished and look forward to other A-List brands joining the Fantasy Life family.”
