Sarah Cristobal admits that being created through sports is useful. The bond inspired an account of a mother athlete’s life: there is no formal training for motherhood. The tale adapted for a newsletter format was published by journalist, publisher and creative consultant no.
It is the fourth text posted on the profile created by Nike in Substack. Silently, the brand debuted on the platform in June under the motto: a biweekly publication dedicated to new sports articles. The only direct mention is in aboutwith the seal “Made Possible By” followed by the iconic Swoosh.
It was journalist Daniel-Yaw Miller who revealed the project earlier this month. According to him, Nike is strategic when entering discreetly in an environment whose origin is linked to the independence of creators and the rejection of the noise of social networks.
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“No one wants to see the substacker turns into another platform in which consumers tirelessly receive products and services from corporate organizations of all kinds.”
Two months ago, American Eagle launched the biweekly newsletter that shares trends through invited curators. The brand, which has just starred in the trendy campaign with Sydney Sweeney, also bets on format as a tool for proprietary content.
As Miller himself pointed out, the substack has already become a valuable ecosystem for the marks to ignore. And the case of Nike signals a greater inflection under the management of Elliott Hill, the brand’s new CEO since January, and responsible for the company’s return to more significant and culturally engaged marketing.
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The initiative reflects a thesis well by Monica Khan: Smart brands no longer want to “resume control” of creators. They are learning to give up him.
In recent weeks, the substack has won the headlines after raising $ 100 million in a Series C round led by Bond and The Chernin Group. With this, the company officially became a unicorn valued at $ 1.1 billion.
More than a financial milestone, the round signals a new direction. The brand that has been consolidated as a synonym for independent media for creators now moves to become a more complete consumer product. It is a pivot that seeks to turn the platform into a social network with its own identity and less algorithmic noise.
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The new media logic is direct: community + recurrence + relevant content.
From independence to platform ambition
Following the official announcement of the round, The New York Times to detail Substack’s business. Hamish McKenzie, one of the co -founders, said the platform goes into “a new phase in which people not only publish but also find audiences and new opportunities.”
The report concludes that the substack is more interested in competing with youtube than with MailChimp.
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Launched in 2022, the platform app has already become one of the main free readers conversion engines to paid subscribers. This is where creators interact with fans, publish short texts via Notespromote live video broadcasts or just audio. It is the favorable place for the community to prosper.
Earlier this year, Substack launched one to help creators migrate their audiences. More recently, he presented the model of founding members, which allows larger donations and access to exclusive content and gifts.
And there is public willing to pay: in May, the New York Times 40 Substack subscribers. Some spend between $ 50 and $ 3,000 per year. They fund the direct work of independent writers, podcasters and artists not for the status of supporting “media” but for the relevance of the content itself.
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The Fan Direct Model
Launched in 2017, Substack consolidated a D2C: disintered, signature -based, distribution made by the creators and without depending on arbitrated traffic or algorithm.
And it wasn’t just brands that they noticed.
In May, Russell Westbrook A Steph Curry, Kyle Kuzma and Karem Abdul-Jabbar on the list of athletes who use the substacker as a direct channel with fans.
Legendary Kareem, now 78, has taken more than 225,000 subscribers to his bulletin that discusses “Popular sports, politics and culture and how they define America.”
The movement confirms what Insider Michael Cohen has been defending: athletes have become creators and need to learn to build their own marks on Creator Economy’s logic, with control, recurrence and depth of audience.
The New Media Equation
Substack’s business model is simple: creators get 90% of subscription revenue, and the platform retains 10%. But the growth of the subscriber base and the advancement of the model as an ecosystem reveal something greater.
This approach initially made the platform a refuge for writers, and a stable group of publishers, including short story master George Saunders, historian Heather Cox Richardson and an exodus of traditional newsroom journalists.
Last month, the The Guardian that the Washington Post He sought the substack to discuss possible collaborations. According to McKenzie, the change in traditional media posture is clear:
“Today, they see substack as a response to the biggest media rupture from the press.”
What Substack wants to build is a Flywheel: Newsletters, Podcasts, Lives, Community, Cross Recommendations and Social Feed in one place.
Some numbers:
- US $ 45 million in recurring annual revenue
- US $ 450 million paid to breeders since the Foundation
- 500 thousand active breeders
- 5 million paid signatures
The sharp increase in Valuation of Substack – almost 70% higher than its $ 650 million valuation by 2021 – can validate the strategy of investors’ eyes, but questions about the real value and business of the business.
The question that persists: Is there business to justify hype?
It has never been clear if the 10% of Take Rate supports the ambition of the platform. This is what made the first attempt to capture a C -series unfeasible. At the time, the revenue was around $ 9 million. For the $ 1 billion valuation that the substack was considering, investors sought revenues in the range of $ 100 million to $ 150 million.
Now, with $ 45 million in collection, uncertainty persists. As Casey Newton observed, the distance between $ 45 million and an output of $ 10 billion – a standard expected by you – is still abyssal.
The disparity between the cost of the service and the scale required to justify valuation generates old questions that follow unanswered: What is the real plan to multiply the business?
The monetization dilemma: climbing without betraying the principles
The anti -nunion flag has always been central to the Substack’s speech. From the beginning, the platform argued that signatures were the only “pure” form of monetization.
But there is an obvious problem in this: according to the Media Operator He highlighted before the round, a signature model limits the revenue potential. While ads allow you to win with those who only read the free editions.
Journalist Simon Owens has mapped three possible paths for the substack:
- Ad marketplace (creators sell manually)
- Programmatic ads (more automatic but less control)
- Posts sponsored in the Substack Notes (monetizing the social feed)
Advertising is the next inevitable step if the substack wants to climb.
The Rebooting Brian Morrissey does a insightful analysis of the substack: his current model resembles Onlyfans than Youtube. Both thrived by creating intimate and non-algorithmic connections between creators and hearings, prioritizing recurrence rather than viral engagement.
The differential of the substack, therefore, is in the creation of a collaborative community, with creators indicating other creators. Something rare in an environment dominated by predatory growth strategies.
As Morrissey points out, the future of platforms will tend to a fork: on the one hand, those dominated by AI and algorithms; on the other, those that offer genuinely human experiences. Substack, despite its operational failures, was positioned in this second group.
At this point, however, there is a challenge that dates back its origin as a consumer mark: is the actual customer the creator or the subscriber?
Substack will need to decide whether it will be just a complete tool or ecosystem for the independent media.
What comes after the newsletter
NY Times suggested that the substack could compete with Youtube. As Morrissey points out, the platform is a unique cultural phenomenon and symbol of institutional media migration to the individual creator.
It is likely that now you can’t face it, but it already offers a complete tool suite – text, audio, video, beautiful, feed – to position yourself as a multifunctional platform for creators.
Quoted by Morrissey, creator Lenny Rachitsky already wins more from the business stack around the substacker than his own signature. This proves that the platform can be a creative business engine as long as it is willing to evolve.
In the end, the winners of this new phase will not be those who build their own content, community and product.
