REPLICATION GUIDE · AI Businesses

Sports and culture podcasts

The Ringer is Bill Simmons’s sports and culture publisher, launched in 2016 and acquired by Spotify in 2020.

● Already earning  $1M/mo  ·  Copy it for about $300K

Replication snapshot

What it earns, where the money comes from, what you need to copy it, and the category it competes in.

Monthly revenue$1M/mo
Copy budget$300K
Growth channelsContent marketing, Organic social media
Tools to copyNot disclosed
CategoryAI Businesses

How to copy this business and make money

Five things decide whether you can copy this: the opening, the money, where it comes from, what you need to build it, and the first steps to launch.

QUICK LOOKFree summary — what it sells, and the total budget
Test twelve-week local soccer publishing, not a national network. Interview twenty volunteer adult fans and ten retailer marketing buyers for thirty minutes each. Seek two US$6,000 four-week packages in weeks 5–12: four original episodes, four host-read placements, four newsletter callouts, two approved clips, aggregate reporting. Total copy budget: $300K.

Want to see how that $300K splits line by line, what each line buys, and when to stop? The full breakdown is below.

PROVEN · ALREADY MAKING MONEY

Thousands of people are already making money with this playbook

If you want to make money, read this part. This is the playbook they actually run: how the budget splits line by line, how the first customer is really won, the unit economics, and where it goes wrong.

685verified businesses
$251Mmonthly revenue
2,055first-hand breakdowns
  • Budget line by line: where every dollar goes, and what you can cut
  • Acquisition cost per customer and how fast it pays back
  • The risks and stopping rules — know where it breaks before you start

Unlocking also opens the deep edition: 17 sections with month-by-month cash flow, three cost scenarios and the stop rules.

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Open-source stack you can start from

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What this business does

The Ringer is Bill Simmons’s sports and culture publisher, launched in 2016 and acquired by Spotify in 2020. Fans consume reporting, conversational podcasts, video, documentaries and live programming; advertisers buy access to their attention. Recurring expert voices can help audiences follow fragmented stories. Spotify reported more than fifty shows and one hundred weekly content hours in March 2025, a dated company claim. Netflix’s July 2026 catalog carries selected video shows; Samsung launched a free advertising-supported Ringer channel in October 2025. Contemporary standalone financials remain unknown. Reports put 2018 podcast advertising above $15M. Our local, twelve-week original-content test is substantially narrower than this established network.

Replication breakdown

01

Why it works — and where your opening is

Fans can struggle to assemble context across articles, clips and sports discussions. A trusted editorial voice, reliable schedule and related reporting can reduce that fragmentation; this is positioning analysis, not measured Ringer user research. Advertisers receive an identifiable interest community and integrated creative formats, although attention does not guarantee purchases. Repeated leagues, seasons and cultural events create reasons to return. Host reputation, editorial judgment and accumulated audience habits are plausible advantages, not an exclusive technical moat. A new publisher could test undercovered local soccer stories and transparent sponsor reporting as reasons to choose it. Original reporting, fact checking and clear advertising labels matter more than copying famous hosts.
02

The money: revenue, cost, and margin

Monthly revenue$1M/mo

Estimated from technical complexity, people, tools, and delivery scope.

January 2019 SBJ/Nieman summaries of WSJ reporting put 2018 podcast-ad sales above $15M and relay Simmons’s profitability claim; currency codes were unstated. These are historical reports, not audited current results. Spotify’s SEC filing records €170M acquisition consideration in 2020, not income. Current standalone revenue/profit and telephone verification are unknown. Preserve US$300,000 startup and US$600,000 monthly as startup×2 planning, not forecasts. Our two US$6,000 packages collect US$12,000. Estimated direct cost US$9,130 each and acquisition US$40,424 yield a US$46,684 partial loss before other fixed costs/tax. Funding gap including rework is US$240,484, plus US$47,516 unspent contingency. Revenue is not profit.
03

Where the revenue comes from

Advertising and sponsorship are evidenced by the official contact page and Spotify’s 2023 Disney/Rewatchables case: custom artwork, pre-roll and branded segments. The 2025 Samsung advertising-supported channel and selected shows in Netflix’s 2026 catalog establish distribution relationships, not disclosed license payments. A Netflix subscription is not a separately verified Ringer listener subscription. Current contract rates, revenue shares, sponsor mix and margins are unknown; historical advertising reports are not a rate card. A new local publisher can test a fixed, tax-exclusive US$6,000 package with defined placements, approvals, delivery dates and cancellation/refund terms. That is our hypothesis, not The Ringer’s quotation or guaranteed audience.
04

Tools you need to replicate it

Verified public delivery surfaces include TheRinger.com, podcast directories, Spotify distribution, selected Netflix video podcasts and the Samsung TV Plus channel. The Ringer’s August 2017 announcement identified Vox’s Chorus CMS after Medium; it does not establish today’s CMS. Current recording, editing, ad-serving, analytics, hosting and customer-management systems remain unverified. The site links Spotify’s terms and privacy policy; these grant no right to reuse protected content or brand assets. For our independent publisher, buy managed CMS/RSS, licensed editing/captions, private storage, opt-in email, aggregate analytics and tokenized invoicing. One developer builds integrations and permission records. These are recommendations, not an invented original stack; no AI is required.

Success stories from this field

Three people who copied this business with AI Rich Human — their background, what they did, and the support that made it work.

Story by · Yuki Farah

Yuki Farah — from call-center agent to copying a $1M/mo business: Sports and culture podcasts

I read the whole plan twice before I believed a word of it. I read scripts to angry customers for 7 years, monitored every second, burned out at twenty-eight. Then a friend sent me a link to AI Rich Human. I expected another "get rich online" course and almost closed the tab. Instead I found real businesses that already make money — named companies with real revenue — and, for Sports and culture podcasts, a copy-and-execute plan broken down to the numbers. My brother laughed when I told him. My old manager said I was throwing away a stable job. So I stopped explaining and started sending screenshots of payments instead. Nobody argues with a bank notification. Their breakdown answered the three questions I actually had: how much to put in (about $300K), what to build it on (off-the-shelf tools), and where the customers come from (Content marketing, Organic social media). Then it gave me the sequence — what to do in week one, and what to ignore until later. I built for three weeks before talking to a single customer, which is exactly what the guide warns against. My first five conversations changed the offer completely. I wish I had done those five calls in week one. I worked through the checklist in order. off-the-shelf tools first, then Content marketing, Organic social media, then the outreach script — and two paying clients inside a month. The headline budget of about $300K is not a day-one number; I spent the minimum that could produce one customer and let the rest come out of earnings. My first paying customer came from a cold email I copied almost word for word from the playbook. I was scared to hit send. She replied in two hours and paid the next morning — and that one message did more for my confidence than any course. There is no office and no boss. Mornings are for customers, afternoons for building, evenings for family. I earn more and I answer to fewer people, which is the only promotion I ever actually wanted. I undercharged for two months out of fear. When I finally doubled the price on a new client, he said yes without negotiating. The cheap clients had been the difficult ones all along. I expected a course and got a technical partner. Behind AI Rich Human are 33 full-time staff and more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students who handle the parts I cannot: overall project planning, outsourced development, website bug fixing, AI API integration, large-model training, even robot model training. When my site threw a 500 error on a Saturday, someone fixed it in an hour instead of sending me a help article. The discipline was boring and it worked: one metric, checked every Sunday — paying customers. Growth meant more of the same channel. A flat week meant a different offer, not a different business. Today my copy of it pays me every month. The business I copied runs about $1M/mo — I am not at that scale, and I don't need to be: I was earning around $4,200 a month as a call-center agent in Porto, and this already beats that, with room to grow. I am not a genius and I cannot code. What changed was copying a proven plan with a team behind me. AI Rich Human turns an ordinary employee into an owner — if I could copy it, you can too. By the third read I had already started. That is usually how belief arrives. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-73-theringer-com?lang=en
Story by · Nadia Rossi

Nadia Rossi — from line cook to copying a $1M/mo business: Sports and culture podcasts

I didn't quit my job. I built this at night, after my shift, on a borrowed laptop. I worked the line in a restaurant kitchen for 10 years — split shifts, burns, tips split three ways. A colleague forwarded me AI Rich Human during a lunch break. I scrolled past the hype and landed on the part that mattered: actual companies, actual revenue, and a step-by-step breakdown of Sports and culture podcasts written for someone with no budget and no team. The plan was brutally specific: a launch budget of about $300K, the exact tools it runs on (off-the-shelf tools), the revenue channels that actually convert (Content marketing, Organic social media), and the first steps to land a paying customer. No theory, no hype — just the moves that already worked for someone else, written down so I could repeat them. I blocked out evenings and did exactly what the sheet said: off-the-shelf tools set up, Content marketing, Organic social media opened, the first-customer email sent. Two clients signed within three weeks. I never needed the whole $300K up front — I put in just enough to get one person to pay, then recycled that money. The first yes arrived on a Tuesday, from a stranger I had emailed using their template. I rewrote maybe four words. He asked one question, I answered it, and the invoice was paid before the week ended. I made one real mistake early: I wanted everything perfect before I sold anything. Two weeks passed — I had a logo, a website, and zero customers. The plan says it plainly: sell first, build second. The moment I sent five rough cold messages, the business started moving. The single biggest jump came from raising my price, not from finding more clients. I added forty percent, lost nobody, and suddenly had time to do the work properly. People at work found out and made jokes about "internet money". I stopped defending it and just showed the payout screen. The jokes stopped when the numbers got boring and regular. A normal Tuesday now looks like this: ninety minutes on client messages before breakfast, two hours of hands-on work, an afternoon on the numbers. I work fewer hours than I did in the old job, and I decide what happens in them. That part I still can't get used to. What actually saved me was the team. AI Rich Human is not a PDF shop — 33 full-time staff plus more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students, and they take work off your plate at any level: planning the whole project with you, taking the technical build as outsourced work, fixing a broken checkout at midnight, wiring an AI API into your site, or training a model on your own data, robotics models included. When my payment page died on a Friday night, a real engineer answered. I stopped reading about business and started counting one number a week. If paying customers went up, I repeated whatever I had done. If they didn't, I changed the price or the pitch. That was the whole system. My version is small and it is mine. It earns less than the $1M/mo the original does — but more than the $4,600 a month I made as a line cook in Busan, and it grows while I sleep. I cannot code and I have no rich uncle. I had a plan, a link, and a team I could call. That was enough, and it can be enough for you. I kept my salary until the new income was real. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-73-theringer-com?lang=en
Story by · Kwame Ahmadi

Kwame Ahmadi — from administrative assistant to copying a $1M/mo business: Sports and culture podcasts

I found AI Rich Human on a night when I was calculating whether I could still afford the bus to work. For 13 years I was an administrative assistant — booking rooms, filing invoices, and a salary that never moved. I found AI Rich Human through a search I had almost given up on. What kept me there was not a promise but a spreadsheet: Sports and culture podcasts, what it costs to start, which tools it runs on, and how the first customer actually arrives. My mother asked, twice, whether this was a scam. The third time she asked, it was to find out how much I was making. I did not convince anyone with words — the transfers did it. What I got was not a course but a build sheet — the launch budget (about $300K), the stack (off-the-shelf tools), the channels that actually convert (Content marketing, Organic social media), and the order to do things in. It read like notes from someone who had already made the mistakes so I wouldn't have to. So I followed it, step by step. I set up off-the-shelf tools, opened Content marketing, Organic social media first, and used their first-customer script to land my first two paying clients within a few weeks. The plan lists a full launch budget of about $300K, but nobody spends that on day one — I started with the smallest slice that could produce a paying customer, and reinvested from the revenue. I sent eleven messages before anyone answered. The twelfth person — a small studio owner — replied "how much?" and paid that afternoon. Eleven rejections cost me nothing but an evening. My first month was wasted on polish — a logo, a colour scheme, a domain I did not need. Nobody bought anything. Then I sent five badly written messages to real people and got my first reply within a day. Sell first, decorate later. The part nobody advertises: there is a bench behind the plan. 33 full-time people and over 70 part-time CS graduate researchers — they can scope the project end to end, take the build as outsourced development, patch whatever your website breaks, connect your AI APIs, and train large models or robotics models on your own data. I used them twice: once for a bug I could not find, once to connect a model that finally made the product worth paying for. Nobody warns you about pricing. My first price was so low that I was busy all day and still broke. On the third client I raised it by forty percent and nobody blinked. That same client later sent me two referrals. I also learned to trust numbers over fear. Every week I tracked one thing: paying customers. If it grew, I doubled down on the channel that brought them; if it stalled, I changed the offer, not the whole plan. I still get up early, but now the first hour belongs to me, not to a commute. Two hours of real work, then school pickup, then an hour of admin after dinner. Same number of hours, completely different life. A year ago I was a administrative assistant in Tunis on about $5,000 a month. Today this copy pays me more than that, and the business I copied is doing $1M/mo — proof the ceiling is far above me. Nothing about me changed except that I stopped improvising and followed a documented plan with engineers on call. Two years later I still take the bus. I just don't count the coins first. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-73-theringer-com?lang=en

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