AllCity Network, a new venture capital-backed startup claiming to be the “future of local sports” media has expanded to three cities in two years since launching in Denver nearly a decade ago. AllCity CEO Brandon Spano recently claimed its latest outlet, PHLY in Philadelphia, will be profitable within a year and eventually generate $10 million in revenue.
PHLY launched with DraftKings, Athletic Greens and other sizable corporate sponsors last month. Spano told Marketing Brew that PHLY already has more than 1,000 paid annual members. A membership costs $79.99 annually.
Marketing Brew reported that across the AllCity Network, which runs outlets in Denver, Phoenix and Chicago in addition to Philadelphia, advertising accounts for 70 percent of revenue. The company has also raised north of $8 million (and growing) from venture capital investors, including the Boulder-based Matchstick Ventures.
“I kind of joke, but, we can pop these up like Chick-fil-As,” Spano said.
While AllCity has used the collapse of local sports media companies as fruit for fundraising and advertising, the company believes they are building a different product for the modern sports fan.
“What we believe is that we’re standing up a different product that’s not disruptive to sports talk radio,” Spano explained to Marketing Brew. “It’s a different listenership, it’s a different audience, and it’s a different product. These are team-specific products. It’s very different.”
While AllCity’s outlets rely heavily on local culture and sponsors to drive a communal relationship with sports fans in each market, the content distribution model is nearly identical to traditional sports talk.
At a time when a legacy brand like ESPN New York is moving to a similar model centered on digital video, either AllCity is ahead of the curve or not as niche as they would like to be. Either way, they carved out a market in several cities already and seem very confident about the latest launch in Philadelphia.
