How Enjoy Basketball Grew to 45,000 Subscribers in 1 Year on beehiiv

Overview

• Newsletter: Enjoy Basketball
• Founders: Cole Hock, Cody Hock, Kenny Beecham
• Cadence: 3x per week
• Audience: Gen Z + Millennials
• Timeframe: 12 months (launched March 2022)
• Result: 45,000+ subscribers in one year (including 10,000 in the first 24 hours)

The Backstory

Enjoy Basketball isn’t just another NBA newsletter—it’s a positive-first media & lifestyle brand built to counter the negativity, hot takes, and clickbait that dominate sports coverage.

The idea was simple:

• Cover the NBA in a fun, digestible way
• Keep it uplifting
• Build a community that actually enjoys the game

The team launched the newsletter ahead of the 2022 playoffs with a clear voice: like a friend breaking down last night’s games, complete with memes, gifs, and light takes.

Why a Newsletter

They wanted a direct channel that:

• served Kenny’s existing audience with deeper, inbox-native content
• wasn’t dependent on algorithms or platform risk
• let them own the audience instead of renting reach

They also saw a gap: most sports publishers weren’t winning in the inbox with 20–30 year-olds or weren’t targeting them well.

Monetization Strategy

Enjoy Basketball monetizes through two core streams:

1) Advertising

They leaned into brand partnerships that fit the audience, helped by Cole and Cody’s background in talent management (they already work with brands daily).

Examples of brand partners mentioned:

• NBA
• Shopify
• Peacock / NBCUniversal
• PrizePicks
• (and other endemic + adjacent consumer brands)

2) E-commerce

They built an apparel business under the same brand name. One collaboration (ICEE) sold out in under 5 hours, reinforcing that Enjoy Basketball is bigger than a newsletter—it’s a brand.

The Challenge

Find a platform that made launching “from zero” easy

Cole and Cody were first-time newsletter operators. They needed a tool that was:

• quick to set up
• easy to operate without technical experience
• built for newsletter growth (not just email sending)

They also cared about the team behind the product—specifically leadership with proven newsletter experience.

Why beehiiv

Three reasons consistently came up:

1) Ease of use (fast setup)

They were able to get up and running quickly—even with no newsletter background.

2) Newsletter-first tools + analytics

They wanted deep insights into:

• subscriber sources
• what content performs
• where growth is actually coming from (Twitter, Reddit, creator distribution, etc.)

3) Creator-friendly pricing

They preferred a flat fee model vs. revenue share—so scaling wouldn’t punish them as the business grew.

Results

Since launching on beehiiv in 2022, Enjoy Basketball achieved:

• 10,000 subscribers in the first 24 hours
• 45,000+ subscribers in one year
• Consistent engagement (they referenced strong open + click performance, but did not publish exact %s in the pasted text)

They also noted something important: much of the growth continued even during the NBA off-season, when news volume is lower, meaning the brand and format were working beyond headlines.

Favorite beehiiv Features

beehiiv Analytics (subscriber + source insights)

They rely heavily on understanding where subs come from and which channels are driving results so they can double down.

Growth-friendly pricing

They viewed beehiiv’s ROI as a no-brainer and upgraded early to access growth tools.

The beehiiv team + support

Responsiveness mattered—especially as new operators learning the mechanics of email growth and optimization.

They also highlighted beehiiv’s shipping velocity: frequent product updates that directly support creators and growth teams.

What’s Next

The team planned to push into “hybergrowth” by leaning harder into beehiiv growth features, especially the referral program, after proving the concept through organic distribution.

They also aimed to broaden the audience beyond just Gen Z + Millennials to anyone who wants a quick, fun basketball brief.

Summary

Enjoy Basketball launched a positive-first NBA newsletter and turned it into a fast-growing media brand.

In 12 months, they:

• built a 45,000+ subscriber audience
• monetized with both ads and e-commerce
• created a scalable owned channel that complements creator distribution

If you’re building a creator-led newsletter business and want growth infrastructure (not just an email sender), beehiiv is built for that.