Niche Sports Publication Prep Network Goes Wide

Prep Network, a youth and high school sports media company, is going wide: The niche news and event publisher launched national coverage of the industry today.

The Minneapolis-based company, which has over 50,000 paid subscribers and holds 350 events per year, aims to be the ESPN of youth and high school sports with the dedicated platform for national news, athlete profiles, product reviews and video content.

The new homepage is the flagship for several owned-and-operated and very, very niche media properties—Prep Hoops, Prep Redzone, Prep Girls Hoops, Prep Dig, Prep Soccer, Prep Softball, Prep Lacrosse—that cover games, athletes and local sports news around the U.S. Prep Network hosts over 300,000 attendees at its tournaments and events.

So why launch the ESPN of youth sports now? Jake Phillips, co-founder and chief executive officer, told AMO: 

We definitely have built up some brand equity with our individual brands that can roll into Prep  Network. But more than anything, it’s underserved. There’s just not a lot of outlets focused specifically on what’s going on with high school sports. And I think we’re uniquely positioned with the amount of content we do produce at the brand level to tackle that space and really make an impact.

The company, which has some 55 employees and 400 freelance or contract writers publishing over 4,000 stories a month, hired Anwar Stetson to serve as managing editor for the national coverage. Stetson, a Los Angeles-based journalist, has covered high school and professional sports as a newspaper reporter and on-air personality for ABC-affiliated news channels.

Prep Network has been subscription-first since its founding over a decade ago. Most of the content is paywalled with 40% of revenue coming from subscriptions, 55% from events and the rest from ads and sponsorships. The company expects to grow 20% in 2025, and has seen consistent annual growth of 15% to 20% most years on the subscription side of things. The bootstrapped company has always been profitable, reinvesting in the business.  

Rather than focusing on games and the thousands of players across the country, Prep Network will look at the biggest trends nationally for high school and youth sports, which could include new products; draft coverage; name, image and likeness in youth sports; and technology that is rapidly changing.  

“Far and away, the biggest audience we have are the families, the players and parents. Obviously, kids don’t have credit cards, so mom and dad are the ones ultimately making the buying decision,” Phillips said. “That is the ultimate audience, especially when you’re talking about more national trends that impact that audience. Again, there’s no secret about how much money is being invested or just how much money is being spent.” 

Phillips started the company with a co-founder after they were both recruited to play division III college basketball. They found the division to be underserved from a recruiting perspective and coverage standpoint. He’s now a customer as his son plays basketball. 

“That type of content now, being one of our customers, it’s attractive for the families that are spending money. They’re in the gym, they’re on a field. They’re attending events, paying for their kids to go to tournament showcases, and consuming that content that is definitely still the biggest, the biggest audience that we see,” Phillips said.