Liza Sankar-Gorton writes League Lowdown on Substack, a weekly NFL digest for readers who care as much about storylines as they do stats. Each issue breaks down which matchups matter, what narratives are brewing, and the slightly gossipy undercurrents. As a peripheral football fan, her newsletter gave me a way to follow the emotional arc of the season — but she also found an audience in my diehard football friends. Her depth of knowledge and level of analysis is so impressive.
Liza Sankar-Gorton
As a friend, I’ve had a front-row seat to watching Liza build League Lowdown from scratch, and so after she wrapped her first full season, I was excited to catch up with her over email to reflect on what she learned:
What prompted you to start this?
I don't like my job, but it has flexible hours, so I was always ruminating about starting a project that would fill my cup and incentivize me to time-box work. It was a struggle to commit: "What if I don't like it? What if I want to quit? What if I make a fool of myself?" But training for a half marathon was a mental unlock: seeing myself follow a plan to do X thing for X weeks showed me I don't need all the answers, I can just try and see how it feels. I knew I wanted to do content creation and I was already spending time following football. Knowing the season was about to start was the final prompt — do it now, or wait an entire year!
What made you think, ‘okay, this is working?’
At first, readers saying I taught them something, made them laugh, or helped them decide which games to watch. Then, subscribers requested stories, strangers commented on my posts, and my favorite journalist at The Athletic, Jourdan Rodrigue, exchanged some DMs with me. It was easy to really appreciate these engagements because I already felt accomplished just from hitting "publish".
What felt different in practice than it did in theory?
In my mind, I was never going to use AI and I was going to market the sh*t out of it. In the end, I used AI to make my logo, to cut word count, and to fact check. And, after marketing heavily for a bit, I embraced slower organic growth. I still feel cognitive dissonance about these choices — but I'm glad I didn't let perfect become the enemy of good.
What feels worth doubling down on and what doesn’t?
I'm doubling down on sharing creative work early and often — seeing other friends do it inspired me, and when I started, so many friends said they'd been wanting to create things, too — it's a fun cycle I want to keep feeding! I'm leaving behind my anxiety that if I accidentally leave out a big storyline, I'm a fraud who doesn't really follow football.
What’s one or two creators/publications that helped shape your approach?
Tincan! Witnessing Tincan evolve gave my scared lizard-brain tangible proof that it's not only safe but actually fun and rewarding to be creatively vulnerable. For sport specific content: Simone Scott, SportsBall, and Chris Berman's Fastest 3 minutes (the OG NFL Digest).
The most fun part of making this?
Recording voiceover! These days you see a VO and presume it's AI, so a lot of subscribers were surprised it was me. Knowing I was in peoples' ears on their runs, or in their cars, was so fun.
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