Super Fan Scores Big in the Football Community

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Two days ago, I told you the story of Brad Driscoll, the man who gets paid up to $3,000 a month to play video games for an online community. That guy brings living the dream to an all new level. Well, for those who are passionate about sports instead of video games, what can you do? Once again, you can rally behind the power of community. Welcome to Side Hustle School.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. Today's featured story is all about a Dallas Cowboys fan who turns his passion for sports and traveling into an epic road trip and a foam fingered brand. What does that mean? Well, stay tuned and I'll tell you. This one is still getting off the ground.

He's not making $3,000 a month yet, but like every story I tell you, it is profitable. All the details about this super fan who scores big in the football community are coming right up. [Music]

Rhett Gromitbauer can't remember a day in his life without sports. As a child, he decorated his room with Sports Illustrated covers. He had an NFL lunchbox.

He even wore his beloved Dallas Cowboys jersey for school pictures, especially when the dress code was formal wear. So when a sponsorship rep from his favorite football team called him later in life, he was thrilled. At the time, Rhett was working for the Texas Department of Transportation as a marketing manager and the Dallas Cowboys were interested in getting him more involved. From then on, Rhett was invited to attend games, cheerleading parties and other events. It was there that he expanded his network.

He got to give Mark Cuban a fist bump and explain how to throw out the first pitch at a World Series game to the famous Cowboys quarterback, Roger Staubach. The more Rhett was involved in the sports world, the more he was reminded of a problem he had discovered years before. He realized there was no simple service to help fans in far away cities watch their hometown teams play. Those fans could either buy an expensive TV subscription or hope that they happen to pick the one bar in town showing the game for their team. Rhett knew there had to be a better way of serving dislocated fans, so he took a shot at creating his own community, Foam Finger Nation.

Members of Foam Finger Nation can simply log on and find the closest locations to where their team's games are being screened. They can also create an alumni group and invite other fans to watch parties. For now, this service is free, but it won't always be. After the next football season, Rhett is planning a redesign, along with a transition to operating the site as a paid membership service. Foam Finger Nation is also growing into the umbrella ban for everything Rhett wants to do.

For example, he began and completed a quest to visit every NFL stadium in just 16 weeks while driving a 1967 VW bus from town to town. That project turned into a book he sells on Amazon called "25,000 Miles to Glory." Then the people from NFL films came calling. They were interested in an interview he'd done with their co-founder, who had died in the years since Rhett had interviewed him. Rhett used the chance to talk with him about 25,000 miles to glory, and they helped get the film version off the ground. He now earns royalties of at least $500 a month from that project, in addition to sales from the book on Amazon.

He's currently raising money from his day job to pay for the next film he wants to make. So in a situation like this where we have a project that is profitable, but hasn't quite reached its potential yet, it could be helpful to think, okay, what could he do, or what could he try to increase revenue, or create a new source of income using the existing structure that he's built so far? And as you listen to the episodes, I would encourage you to think actively, just like that. Because this is the kind of thinking that's gonna help you when you start your project, or when you grow the project you've already started. What can you do to take not only the skills you already have, but also the assets you already have?

And in this case, the asset is the existing structure that he's built for this foam fingernation website, his existing relationships with professional football teams, NFL films, and so on, and most important of all, whatever the subscriber base is for foam fingernation. So in his case, he's got a plan to do the redesign of the site and turn it into a paid membership, and that could be one viable way forward. He knows his community better than me, but from the outside, I tend to think, the reason he started that is because the only alternative was a paid service, to pay for the TV subscription. So the point of using this service is that it's free. I almost think there's more value in providing this service for free, really scaling it, trying to get as many people as possible to take part, and then selling access to that to brands, or perhaps charging the venues, the restaurants and bars to post ads or invitations to watch parties.

Maybe there's a sponsorship model somewhere, maybe he can further expand his books, his films, maybe there's a podcast there. Like I don't know exactly what he should do, 'cause I don't know all the details of his business, but again, just from an outsider's view, I think the true potential of this project lies in that group of people of, as he calls them, dislocated fans, fans of sports teams that are in different cities from where they live. What ideas do you have for him? What do you think he could do to improve or grow this business even further? Think about that, and also think about if whatever your ideas are could apply in some way to what you're working on, whether specifically, tactically, or just a principal.

Because after all, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better, if you'd like to see the show notes and learn more about Foam Finger Nation, just go to sidehustleschool.com/573. That is for episode 573. I'll be back again tomorrow with 574. This is Chris Guillebeau For Side Hustle School. [Music]