There was a time, not so long ago, when a sports media company could build a business on newsletters alone, and the phrase "there's an app for that" was reserved for Silicon Valley keynotes. Those days, it seems, are over.

Front Office Sports, the digital publisher that has made a franchise of covering the business of sports, will introduce its first mobile application on Sept. 1, according to the company. The app arrives two weeks before the debut of Front Office Sports Tonight, a nationally syndicated television program that will mark the publisher's first foray into linear broadcasting.

The twin launches represent a significant expansion for a company that began as a newsletter operation and has grown into something considerably more sprawling. Front Office Sports is on pace to exceed $20 million in revenue this year and achieve profitability, according to Adam White, the chief executive and founder.

"We have grown from being a newsletter business into a website, social channels, YouTube, and, beginning this month, linear television," said Victoria Baldwin, the vice president of marketing and strategy. She noted that 81 percent of the publication's audience described their engagement with Front Office Sports as a daily habit. (Whether the remaining 19 percent are simply less forthcoming about their reading patterns was not disclosed.)

The app, which was designed internally and built with the developer Pug Pig, will feature five sections: Now, Read, Watch, Play and For You. Newsletters, somewhat counterintuitively, will not be readable within the app itself; the publisher said it wanted to respect users' preference for their inboxes.

In October, Front Office Sports sold a majority stake to RedBird IMI, the investment fund led by Jeff Zucker, the former CNN executive. Financial terms were not made public.

The expansion follows a path worn smooth by other publishers responding to declining web traffic and the encroachment of artificial intelligence on search results. The New York Times, People magazine and Eater have all introduced or enhanced mobile applications in recent months.

Mr. White said his company was less vulnerable to such fluctuations, given its newsletter origins. The app, he suggested, simply offers a more direct connection to readers — which is, after all, what newsletters were supposed to provide in the first place.

Original story published in Adweek: "Front Office Sports Debuts Its First Mobile App"