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- The Top 10 Newsletters I Read
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🎶🎶 Dadada, Dadada!! 🎶🎶
That's the SportsCenter Top 10 theme music if you are musically challenged like me.
We got another juicy top 10 list today.
I ranked my favorite podcasts a few weeks back, but for those that know me, I am kinda a newsletter nerd.
I write these blogs using beehiiv, it’s an unreal platform. Hit that logo above and support the letter!
I spent the last 5+ years building a daily sports newsletter, Morning Blitz. Did solid! Had over 50,000 super engaged readers with a good 100K+ social following.
During that journey, I signed up for a ton of newsletters to see the competition out there.
Learned everything there needs to be known about creating a great newsletter product along the way.
Also what it takes to make a bad product.
Over the five-year span, I unsubscribed to a ton of bad newsletters, but there were a few beautiful products that I kept around.
A lot of people I am personally close to write these newsletters, so I am not going to rank them in order to not hurt any feelings.
JK! If you’re my friend, you can handle the heat. We only report the facts and speak the truth over here at The Diary.
These are the top 10 favorite newsletters in my inbox IN ORDER…
The Daily Friday
Kings of Memes
This newsletter is a masterful blend of informative and comedic.
Sent 3x per week, they start with the top five most relevant stories in the day.
Literally, you cannot go a line in this newsletter without a laugh.
The newsletter is a product of the great Friday Beers, the Almost Friday Media company that is changing the game.
If you’re a male between the age 18-35ish, I do not need to describe to you what Friday Beers is. If you’re not in that category, it’s not really worth describing to you what a “meme” is.
The author of this bad Larry is the witty and talented Jack Lawler.
Somehow, Jack finds a way to tie real life serious, sometimes boring news with comedy.
Headlines range from politics to media to literally anything relevant and notable.
And it’s refreshing to see a lot of the hyperlinked content lead to original content put out by the Friday Beers cast of characters.
Sports makes its way into every edition. I mean how can you write to a group of 18–35-year-olds and not talk about sports. Sports are so sick.
She’s a Top 2 (not 2) newsletter for me, award ceremony to follow so Jack can collect his hardware. It’s too damn funny of a newsletter not to subscribe.
The DONUT
Sound Yummy? Well, it’s freakin’ delicious.
Dose Of News Useful Today.
That’s actually what this DONUT stands for and it’s true.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I am an idiot.
I don’t know a whole ton outside the world of sports and media.
Ask me where any player in the NFL went to college and I promise I’ll go 95%.
But like real world valuable stuff needed to live and be an adult… I’m not that guy.
So, I need these newsletters to help me out.
This template is engaging and digestible. Been my favorite way to keep up with the craziness going on in politics. Shit is wild these last few weeks.
They got international stories because apparently places exist beyond America. The DONUT dabbles in science, tech, media, anything important to know!
They even got a little sports in there too.
I thought the Blitz was king of WTF Stats, but did you know “Legendary slugger Hank Aaron was selected to a record 25 MLB All-Star Games during his 23-year career”. Yeah, weird and crazy.
If you’re trying to get smarter, it’s for you.
The Future Party
Another beautiful curation of relevant topics that simply just make you smarter.
SUPER easy read that focuses on business, entertainment, media and culture.
I personally open this newsletter to learn more about trends in media and the top stories surrounding important info in the entertainment industry.
For a dyslectic man, this bad boy is soothing to skim through.
Bullet points, bolded words. It’s perfect for my brain.
That’s all I got here, keep it simple for a simple product.
The Water Coolest
I don’t want to be too hard on myself here, but I only speak the truth like I stated above.
I feel like an absolute idiot when it comes to financial conversations with all my friends who work in finance.
BUT I like to try my best to stay informed and up to date on economic trends and the stock market.
Checked my stock trading account for the first time in two years last week, not good. I’m serious. REALLY bad.
BUT I am going to dial in, check it weekly and apply my learnings from this great newsletter to become a smarter trader.
“Danny Day Trader” in the flesh??
Tyler Morin writes this masterpiece and there’s really not a better guy in the newsletter industry.
Am I giving him love on here because he’s my friend? NO.
The man has earned the coveted 4th spot. He helps me be less of an idiot.
I’m sure he can help you too.
Front Office Sports
Simply the best sports business newsletter in the world. Not much more needs to be said here.
If you’re a sports fan and interested in the business side of the industry, this is a must read.
The quality is top notch. They hired real reporters to break stories.
Anytime you read FOS content, you know it will be high quality and valuable.
They do things the right way.
Good follows on X and IG as well.
The founders Adam and Russ were kind to me in the early days of Morning Blitz willing to give us advice on how to successfully operate a sports newsletter.
FOS didn’t make the list because they are nice guys, they made it because there is no other product like it in sports.
Legit Football
Staying on the theme of sports, this is by far my favorite NFL newsletter to read.
Every single day, even in the offseason, they send updates on all the relevant storylines across the league.
Football is by far my favorite sport, I assume like most of you reading this, and there’s no better Gridiron product out there.
Fantasy season is approaching FAST. Time to get dialed in!
Legit Football is f****** legit.
B-Side
Do live you in Boston? No? Ok, just scroll past this one.
Oh, you live in Boston? Well, congratulations on being a winner. I feel awfully terrible for anyone who had to scroll. They simply do not own as many championship rings as us Bostonians.
Anyways, this B-Side newsletter is the perfect product for anyone living in Boston.
They cover local news, fun events happening, a little sports, Boston drama, city politics, weather and beyond. If it’s Boston, it’s in B-Side.
It’s a product of The Boston Globe. Met the writer Emily in their offices last week and just further proved why I love this newsletter.
The Published Press
This newsletter is focused on news in the world of media and creators.
The founders are the same guys who do the Colin & Samir Podcast that made my top 10 pods list.
This one is pretty niche and unless you work in media or are creating content on a regular basis, this isn’t for you.
Super easy to read, sent 3x per week and good healthy dose of media news that’s keeps me informed. Super helpful for my job working in sports media.
They do go deeper on stories that wouldn’t get picked up from mainstream media brands.
Trust Fun
This is a publication that actually inspired me to get my start in the personal newsletter world and launch Danny’s Diary.
Cael Schwartz started his newsletter in between jobs after being laid off by Barstool and he now works full-time for Mugsy (the cozy af jean brand).
He’s a lyrical genius in his issues and focuses on a wide range of topics, kinda similar to my approach. He’s just 10x the writer I am.
The tagline he uses for his newsletter… ”Trust Fun is DTC's most irreverent newsletter”.
A lot laughs and value reading his newsletter every week. He’s better than me at what we do.
Danny’s Diary
I mean look, when NFL WRs get asked to name their top 5 receivers in the NFL, they 100% of the time put themselves in there.
Yeah sure, maybe it’s the cockiest position in sports, but I respect it.
I also respect this list, reason I am ranked #10.
I’ve got some work to do.
But I see myself as a top player in this game and I am coming for greatness.
Hopefully when I redo this list in a year, I can climb my own rankings.
Gotta study the tape.
Another one would technically be on the list… Playing Field … but that’s about all I can say about that GOAT publication 👀
That’s a wrap for this week’s Diary.
I f******* love you.
See you next week.
Seriously though, if you ever want to start a newsletter, do it through beehiiv. It’s so easy a caveman can do it (thanks Geico)…
Quit sending emails like a dinosaur.
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beehiiv was created by the same early Morning Brew employees who scaled their daily email to over 4 million subscribers. And now every newsletter on beehiiv has access to the same tools and winning formula.
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World-class growth tools like the referral program and recommendation network
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