The Early Years

In 2014, three college students (or rather, sports nerds) decided it was high time they turned their sports passion into something real. One was a former athlete, one was high on opinions but lacked a platform to voice them, and the third was hungry to build the tech that could elevate the fan experience. We are speaking about Harit Pathak, Jaskirat Singh Arora, and Suryansh Tibarewal, who together opened a blog from their dorm room (the garage equivalent for Silicon Valley).

With just $150, fifteen odd writers, and a handful of Facebook pages, they began publishing stories between classes. When finding stable Wi-Fi signals was a struggle, these dreamers were shooting in the dark with a simple goal: to make the fans’ perspective reach the masses. Initially, the audience was small but fiercely loyal, like raving fans who were hungry for more. They actively debated, shared, and helped drive the organic growth of the tight-knit community. This fueled confidence in the founders (who were yet to tag themselves as CXOs).

Becoming EssentiallySports

One article, in particular, transformed a blog into an independent media platform. A story on Rafael Nadal’s hair transplant shot through the roof, marking an overnight success that took years. It was the first strong signal that ES had struck a product-market fit.

A scrappy start paved the way for powerful fan-first coverage. Within a few years, EssentiallySports had become the most-read Tennis site on SimilarWeb, even beating the ATP’s official page. In parallel, a passionate motorsports clan was coming together, and this was before F1 became F1 as we know it today in the United States. ES soon braved the launch of the NASCAR vertical, and it set the ball rolling.

What began as a pipe dream in a dorm room was now part of the mainstream, even as an outlier with its unique content strategy.

Years passed, pageviews stacked, the brand grew, the community diversified, and ES went from website-first to going 360. Today, its portfolio carries a combination of newsletters, social IPs, and other products. And the journey is still unfolding.