Sports Lunch Expands from Sox to Cubs & Mets

The recent opening of the 2016 Major League Baseball season has also launched a brand new platform for baseball fans of the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and New York Mets looking for a daily news source. Sports Lunch, a sports, entertainment and media start-up which piloted its “Sox Lunch” daily email newsletter last season, has launched two new versions of a simple news communiqué aptly named, “Cubs Lunch” and “Mets Lunch.”

Founded by Kevin Phelan, a former newspaperman and Internet start-up entrepreneur who helped launch BostInno, “Sox Lunch” was born as a simple email to friends and family as a way to provide basic, one-stop sourcing of information for fans who “simply need to know last night’s score, who-did-what along with tonight’s game-time, opponent and starting pitchers, mixed with a few paragraphs of commentary and maybe a good tip or link to an important story,” said Phelan, who spent two years analyzing industry trends and data which continually supported his idea for sports.

“In the past year, the investment and news industry have supported simple daily emails like The Skimm, the Lenny Letter and Need to Know as they became powerful sources for mobile-device users looking for two or three screens of information,” said Phelan. “We studied a number of the news platforms and realized there was a void with sports. Our data told us that the morning was cluttered and busy, but lunchtime was a terrific midday break for consumers to check their email as they grabbed a snack. The Sports Lunch products will be delivered right around Noon (et) each day, for a snackable sports news bite, just for your favorite local team.”

Phelan signed former NBA.com pioneer Mark Popadick as his online and on-site producer, based in New York. Popadick helped launch NBA.com, WNBA.com and USA Basketball.com, overseeing content and sponsorship growth, including his coverage of the 2000 Olympic Games from Sydney.

In Chicago, Jason and Nick Greco were hired to produce “Cubs Lunch” that boasts, “Hey-hey, Cubs news for the Cubs Faithful,” as its mantra for fans at the Friendly Confines. Jason, primary editor for “Cubs Lunch”, has followed the team for the past 32 years, enduring the ups and downs along with the Cubs’ faithful while his brother, Nick, will fulfill the role of producer for the news and social media feeds.