What August 1 Means For Me

It's August 1st, folks. We have done it.

August is the month that football comes back. No, games don't start until September, but fall camp opens this week and we get actual news from actual players and actual coaches. It's football season.

Obviously, football season is a big deal around here. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be here. There is a very, very high likelihood that the reason you are reading this is because you have at least a passer's by interest in BYU football or college football in general.

August 1st marks the beginning of the best time of the year.

As you've heard Garrett and me talk about on the Give 'Hell Brigham Podcast (please subscribe and leave a rating HERE), this whole podcast and newsletter is a labor of love for us. We're still firmly in the pre-rich category in our lives.

Now, don't get me wrong. There is revenue coming in. We have about 150 paid subscribers and nearly 500 free subscribers now and we value each and every one of you. The community we are growing here is the best BYU community on the internet. The Discord channel is where most of the meat and potatoes of this community takes place, and it's incredible. The VIP sections of our GEHB family have resulted in car discounts, discounts on suits, lifelong friendships, a whole bunch of laughing at the expense of Ute friends on the internet (my moderator philosophy on that channel is 'not my circus, not my monkeys - anything goes.' The community is spectacular. The VIP family is spectacular-er. Subscribe HERE.

If this feels like a sales pitch of a newsletter, it kind of is. Why? Because even with the revenue that we have coming in, Garrett and I earn like $0.87/hour during football season. We don't need to move from pre-rich to rich, but moving up the pre-rich ladder wouldn't suck.

You don't have to subscribe or donate or pay, we will still love you. But we would sure appreciate it if you did. As an effort to show the amount of work that we put into this endeavor during football season, let me tell you what August 1 really means for us. I can't speak to Garrett's schedule with specifics, so I will hone in on what August 1 means for me.

BUILDING THE BRAND...

One of the biggest aspects to running this newsletter and podcast is establishing enough credibility in a very crowded market that we are getting traffic to our podcast and our site. The best way to do that? Getting our names out there.

This morning at 7:00, I joined a radio show in Waco, TX for an interview about BYU. I will join local radio shows throughout the season (as I have done throughout the offseason, just with more regularity in-season). I have already been in touch with about a dozen other radio stations and podcasts about BYU previews in the next few weeks. Keep in mind, folks, it's just August 1.

We will reach out to a bevy of guests to join us on our show. Finding guests for GEHB is not as easy as it sounds. We could get any beat writer in the country to join us, but you're going to hear those talking points on a million radio shows over the course of the next few months. We like to bring a deeper level of conversation to our show, so we find unique guests with unique insights. That takes time.

Part of the brand building process is our social media presence. Yes, that means the return of some of your favorite tinfoil-laden TikTok characters and also the debut of several others. But it's more than just playing grab-ass on the internet. I have a strategy. I reach out to a TON of people - most of whom I have no business talking to - just to get our name out there.

The more others know "Give 'Em Hell, Brigham" the easier it is to get future guests on the show, and thus, better content for you to enjoy. When I say a ton of people, I mean a ton of people. There is a reason that GEHB was on the Daxbey before anyone. And there is a reason that we had open communications with those who 'broke' the story. We're not news breakers here, but we sure talk to a lot of them.

The GEHB brand is growing and that takes effort.

CONTENT CREATION...

This is such a stupid millennial phrase. "Content creation" feels like something I only hear from whiney influences on Instagram who tell moms to shop at Target. But, it's something that we have to do... and it actually means something for us.

During the season, you will see more podcasts from us - preview shows, post-game shows, live chats during games, as many insightful random interviews as we can get, etc. We have these newsletters. We shoot for three a week all year round, and sometimes (like the month of July when Garrett and I both spent some time with family ahead of football season) we fall short of three a week. After August 1? It's at least three a week.

The in-season newsletters are full of more insight than you're going to get by picking up a newspaper or reading Twitter. Garrett's career is data. My pseudo-career is recruiting (more on that later) and player relationships. Simply put: we are able to provide in-season content that other outlets just can't produce. Period.

It takes time to do these things. We're happy to invest that time into our product, but it does take time. A lot of time.

SPEAKING OF RECRUITING...

I am and will continue the 247Sports gig. That won't change. I've thought about whether that should change or not, but it makes so much sense for me to keep that going full speed. The 247Sports label helps open doors to so many recruits and so many other sources of information.

The news at CSI will stay like it always is. I try to get ahead of the news stories and provide more detail to the news stories there, but by and large, I'm talking about the news stories at CSI.

The conversations that I have while tracking down the news stories usually lead to A LOT more context and A LOT more information that what is shared in the news stories. Most of it is off the record and it will remain that way. But, those off the record stories help shape the insights and opinions that I share on GEHB. My opinions are rarely formed in my own head - I'm just not that smart. Instead, my opinions are formed on the countless hours of conversations that I'm having with other people that doesn't end up in a news story.

An example? I shared this on a Twitter space with Mitch Harper yesterday and I've shared it on the GEHB Discord server many moons ago. Korbyn Green is my favorite true freshman CB coming into the program. He only had an offer from BYU, but he thought he was going to get an offer from Baylor up until then-defensive coordinator Joey McGuire took a job at Texas Tech as their head coach and didn't have room for a CB. Nobody talked about that. Nobody knew that connection was even there.

But we did here. And that kind of insight exists with so many of the stories that happen, and those kinds of tidbits and insight are what the entire GEHB platform is built upon.

It takes time to get that insight. CSI is a great tool that cuts out some of that time, but CSI requires a ton of time in its own right.

IN AN EFFORT TO GET MORE OF THAT INSIGHT...

This year, I have officially joined the High School Rewind team with the remarkable Dusty Lister and his team. I will leave the details to Dusty to spell out how he wants, but there will be a lot of my voice on the radio during high school football games.

Why?

BYU recruits Utah hard. This move will help me establish more credibility with high school coaches and high school players across the state. That means more insight that ends up in content for you guys.

Oh, and it's going to be fun as hell on the radio. So tune in for those details and support your local high school football team.

OH AND NONE OF THIS PAYS OUR ACTUAL BILLS

It's easy to think that Garrett and I are both entry-level employees with no real career, no family, and no financial commitments. But that couldn't be further from the truth.

Garrett is a heavily sought after data guy with a huge plate of responsibility with his current employer. He also does a little consulting on the side.

I am a VP at a bank and oversee a reasonably large commercial banking portfolio, customer experience, and a team of 30 some odd employees.

We both log long hours and those jobs come first every single day. Everything we do for GEHB (and CSI) is one the side of our careers that actually pay the bills. That means that the real heroes of this operation are our long-suffering families who have to braces themselves for August 1 every year, because they know what the next few months have in store. In every sense of the word - they are the real MVPs.

So, what does August 1 mean for me? A hell of a lot of work, a hell of a lot of fun, and a hell of a lot of football content for you all to enjoy.  Our goal is to make this whole production worth it for everyone involved. That means an elite community for you to be part of.

It also means we need to make enough that it continues to justify the cost (time and money) that we invest. We're working tirelessly to make it worth it for you but we're constantly ensuring that it's worth it for us.

If you've read this far, thank you. Sincerely.

Please share this with your friends and tell them to subscribe. And buckle up for the best damn football season you've ever been part of.