Sicko Mode

Before the essay: This week’s episode of Under The Number is with James Trawick, CEO of the Hondo Rodeo Fest.

The Hondo has sold out Chase Field in Phoenix, packed the New Orleans Superdome, and heads to Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium in February with a $1 million purse on the line.

There are people who watch football casually.

Then there are people who grind RedZone for seven hours.

Then there are people who watch all-22 view film breakdowns with Max Browne, Chase Daniel, or Pete Herzog.

And then there are the real sickos who buy The Ultimate Guide to Mesh.

Coach Dan Casey sells that last group a twenty-module digital guide to a single pass concept. The product features sixty case studies, each with film and diagrams, plus a workbook for building your own plan around Mesh (or screen, or counter, or empty).

His customers don't need another debate about whether the quarterback is elite. They want to understand how the offense actually works.

To most people, that sounds impossibly specific. And yet, to the right person, it sounds like exactly what they've been looking for.

The thing is, the audience was never too small. It was too scattered.

In a pre-algorithm driven social media world, a linear TV schedule forced hard choices about what deserved a shared slot. Deep analysis had to compete with programming that more people can enter without context. A breakdown of a coverage rotation lost that fight to a screaming hot take almost every time.

Online, a creator doesn't need to gather everyone at once, and they certainly don’t need to serve everyone who shows up.

Recommendation feeds connect a highly specific interest with someone producing highly specific work. The sickos were always out there, they're just far easier to discover and serve with the algorithmic targeting that exists today.

Do the math. Take an NFL fan base of 140 million people in the US. If one-half of one percent wants all-22 breakdowns, that's 700,000 people.

Now look at the real thing. Film Watchers launched on TikTok in December 2024. It now has nearly 600,000 Instagram followers (including hundreds of NFL players) and a partnership with NFL+. Chase Daniel and Max Browne are running similar plays.

The algorithm finds the people who care deeply, and serves them the content they devour on a silver platter, friction-free.

Dwarkesh Patel figured this out in a completely different category.

Plenty of shows land big guests like Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, or Ilya Sutskever. What sets this podcast apart is the interviewer. Patel spends about a week preparing for each conversation, makes flashcards, and has become such an expert himself that he can confidently keep going right where a general-interest interview would pull back.

The technical detail is exactly why the audience found him and it’s why they keep coming back.

Hold the bar on depth and rigor, and the audience that forms is experts and ambitious learners. You don’t need perfect knowledge to want a more demanding conversation, you just need to be tired of the surface.

What sounds like too much detail to one person sounds like finally getting to the point to another.

Depth does three jobs, and they stack.

Understanding: help me see what I'm missing.

Improvement: help me get better at this.

Identity: help me find, and recognize, the people who care like I do.

Casey carries the first two. His bundle is pitched to "Offensive Football Coaches and Highly Educated Fans of the Game," and he runs a clinic called The Play Caller's Club. Learn it, use it, then sit in a room with people who did the same.

The third job is where this approach to content turns into commerce.

Satisfy, Brice Partouche's French running label, hosts monthly long, slow group runs in sixteen cities ranging from Barcelona to Tokyo. Their lightweight shorts have utility. They also tell other runners how you think about running.

Darc Sport is a uniquely aggro apparel company with a certain, shall we say, tortured soul gym rat vibe.

On their 2.4 million-follower Instagram, you’ll see things like “DSDDNFGU” (different sh*t different day, never f*cking give up). The brand is built for bodybuilders, several rungs past people who work out or even train. And it’s for people who have been through hard things and find the weight room therapeutic.

This line from their website encapsulates everything we’re talking about:

That line isn't "you're excluded." It's "we recognize one another." A signal only has to land with the right people. Recognition by a small, relevant group is the whole appeal.

At the far end of the sicko economy sits Alpenglow's Cho Oyu Rapid Ascent: 29 days in Tibet on the world's sixth-highest mountain, for $55,000 per person. That's roughly $1,900 a day, but you can't simply buy in. Prior ascents of multiple 6,000 to 7,000 meter peaks are required.

These companies give an existing obsession a home.

Which brings me to Skybox.

Skybox is by and for decision makers in the sports economy, and in our content we assume a baseline of fluency, or a relentless desire to build it. We pick up each conversation where the last one left off, and do our best to connect dots at every phase.

All we ask of our audience is the desire to know more. We’re learning in real time and striving to bring rigor and authentic curiosity to everything we publish. It sounds simple, but we keep one idea front and center: depth creates value for the people broader products underserve.

And it’s easy to dig deep when we’re sickos ourselves.