Burnt Ends is the unprofitable part of this. I make up the shortfall and there's a lot of shortfall this year and last year. We haven't been fully funded the past 2 seasons, but I kept it going because I thought it was important. Burnt ends actually costs nearly as much per month to me as keeping the site running costs, maybe more I haven't run the numbers, but sub numbers are not great and I think in general people are a bit disenfranchised by NIL instead of intrigued by it. That's to say there aren't NET NEW people interested in paying NIL players, it's on a diminishing curve industry wide, and the money is coming from revshare which turns general interest into NIL dollars mechanically inside of the AD rather than intentionally outside the program.
I'm actually rethinking Burnt Ends in its entirety at this point, because I'm not sure it makes much sense in a post revenue sharing world, surly can get a lot more value for the money we spend on NIL than what we are getting from Burnt Ends right now (which is effectively zero). I'm thinking a pivot to a more merch based revenue setup makes a lot more sense, and then it can be a revshare model instead of a pure donation/subscription model for content that it is now.
The deals I did with Jonathon Brooks are far and away the most effective things I've ever done to draw site traffic. They were also the most fun. Trolling the entire country on transfer portal day in 2023 was top tier.