ninety two

Sportyish: a unique social media site dedicated to bringing sports-related updates in a very simplified, comprehensible way. To the average sports fan, understanding a sporting event is second nature, as they grew up following sports for the majority of their life. However, for novice sports fans it’s the opposite. Tuning into this social media channel can demystify anything sports-related, and hopefully help those rookie fans determine the difference between a home run and a touchdown. The account, @sporty_ish, was created in March 2018, shortly before March Madness began.

“We thought this was the perfect time to capitalize on a sporting event that everyone will be talking about, but can be confusing as well. We broke down the tournament in layman’s terms, for the casual fan. This way, you can jump into and participate in any conversation.”

The creators of Sportyish, Kelsea Schagrin, and Sierra Kiarsis developed the idea with the intent to connect with individuals organically using social media. They found that Instagram worked best for how they envisioned pushing their content. With the ability to use Instagram stories, this allowed them to engage with many people at once. Both being from major cities, they were immediately immersed in sports culture from a young age. “We are two females born and raised in major sports cities (New York City and Philadelphia) who happen to have that sports-obsessed superfan partner who never shut the hell up about the game, the stats, the history…blah…blah…blah. Sportyish was born out of our interest in sports, but our desire to consume it in a way that didn’t exist. We half-listened to our boyfriend and husband go on and on about last night’s game, but just wished he would get to the point! Who won? What was the big play? What’s everyone going to be talking about at work tomorrow? That’s it! We realized this didn’t exist, so we created it! We love sports, but we were casual fans. We thought there would be a big market for men and women who just want sports presented in an interesting and funny way, and there was.”

Understanding sports can be a daunting task for the newcomer. However, following along on this channel will make sporting events less of a guessing game. This can be very crucial for those water cooler conversations at the office. Hearing these discussions between co-workers can feel overwhelming, especially if someone is not well-versed in the topic. Think of how Joey Tribianni felt in Friends. Having little to no knowledge of sports can be a feeling quite similar to FOMO (fear of missing out) when everyone is talking sports and you have no clue what is going on. No need to sit on the sidelines anymore though, these girls got your back! Schagrin and Kiarsis are dead set on building a platform that broadcasts all sports news and information which can be broken down into layman’s terms.

“We try to bridge the gap between knowing the blood type of the Eagles quarterback with what basketball player Kendall Jenner is spotted with. We write about what’s happening right now to keep people in-the-know. We also break down confusing rules, plays, situations and all the gossip that may be too intimidating and boring to read about on ESPN.”

Schagrin, who majored in sports media at Ithaca College, found her love for writing and comedy which she implements into the Sportyish brand. Kiarsis, who studied studio art and earned her Masters of Art at Manhattanville College, complements Schagrins’ writing with her ability to create compelling visuals for the account. They find this balance works well when creating content for the platform. Also, having a passion for sports is what drives them to make the most engaging content they possibly can. Their target demographic allows them the ability to speak as human beings, and not abide by corporate “rules.” Finding themselves walking on eggshells in the beginning, they soon realized that they didn’t have to stick to the status quo.

“Early on, we found ourselves trying to censor our posts or cleaning up our language, but that ain’t us! Our followers like who we are because we’re unfiltered. We talk and write exactly how we speak and that is why we’ve seen success.”

Sportyish is a growing platform that Schagrin and Kiarsis hope to build into a household name. As they are still in the early stages, their hope is to expand into different outlets such as a website, app, and a podcast in order to make the ease of sports knowledge even easier. While learning more about what they do, we at ninety two even started to realize how awesome it is to have a place we can go catch up on everything sports. As creatives, it can be hard to catch events when we are plugging away on projects into the wee hours of the night. We definitely tune in and utilize the Sportyish channel as an avenue to make us look like we’re at the “top of our game”–especially with fellow sports fans.

“Our goal with Sportyish, when we started, was to create a place on Instagram that could become someone’s “little black book.” We want to be the notecard in your pocket that has the winner of last night’s game, the big event coming up or the name of the player who just married the Real Housewife of Beverly Hills. We wanted to help make sports more accessible to men and women who want to be in the loop, but don’t really give that much of a shit about the details. We hope one day we can create a website, an app, a podcast, and continue to grow!”