Tyler Webb grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, built a massive sports Twitter following as a teenager, watched it get banned overnight, and used every lesson from that experience to launch a sports marketing agency. In this episode of the Encourage Mindset Podcast, Tyler sits down with host Ethan Van De Hey to talk about innovation in the sports industry, why gatekeepers are losing their power, and how a kid hiding in the back room of a grocery store checking tweet engagement ended up building a real business.
Watch the Full Episode with Tyler Webb
A Green Bay Kid Who Lived for Football
Tyler is the oldest of three boys, and sports were the center of life in his household growing up in Green Bay. While he did not have the athletic genes to play beyond high school, sports gave him something deeper than competition — it built camaraderie and connected him with people he might never have met otherwise. That love for sports eventually turned into a digital obsession when Tyler started a Twitter page called I Live for Football during his high school years.
The page was part of the first wave of curated content accounts on social media, alongside names like Bleacher Report and House of Highlights. Tyler and a small group of friends built the account by sharing football highlights and commentary, growing it into a significant following. At the time, the model was simple: build an audience on curated content, then sell ads against that attention. They were making a couple hundred dollars a month split between four or five people — not life-changing money, but enough to prove the concept.
When the Account Got Banned
The turning point came when the I Live for Football account got banned. Tyler describes the moment as devastating — this was the thing he had been building toward for years. But he also felt a strange sense of relief. The account was built on borrowed content and a borrowed platform, which meant the followers were never truly his. If the platform decided to shut things down, everything disappeared overnight.
That experience taught Tyler a lesson he carries into everything he does now: you do not own your followers on someone else’s platform. The brand equity they had built was fragile because it was not attached to a message or identity that could survive beyond a single account. It was that realization that pushed Tyler to think bigger and build something more sustainable.
From Festival Foods to First Client
While Tyler was growing his social media presence, he was also working shifts at Festival Foods, a grocery store. He describes hiding in the back room of the produce department, refreshing Twitter to see how his latest tweets were performing and responding to DMs. One of those DMs changed everything — a football camp reached out asking for help promoting their event. The camp was located at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, right outside of Green Bay.
Tyler did some digging and realized the connection to his hometown made it a natural fit. That first paid client brought in about two hundred dollars a month, and it was a revelation. At Festival Foods, earning that same amount required a full day of in-person work. On social media, he could earn it in fifteen minutes from his room. That contrast stuck with him and reinforced his belief that there was a real career to be built in sports marketing.
A mentor named Tom gave Tyler his first real opportunity and became someone he could count on early in his career. Tyler credits Tom with teaching him how to talk to clients, how to develop a social media strategy, and how to sell a product through storytelling — skills he never would have picked up in a traditional classroom.
Forget the Gatekeepers
The core theme of Tyler’s episode is captured in the title: forget the gatekeepers. Tyler experienced firsthand how the older guard in sports dismissed social media and the young people building careers on it. Many of the professionals he encountered early on felt too established or too old to take platforms like Twitter and Instagram seriously. They did not see social media as a legitimate pathway into the sports industry.
Tyler’s response was not to ask for permission — it was to innovate around the gatekeepers entirely. Social media gave him direct access to audiences, clients, and opportunities that the traditional sports industry infrastructure would have kept behind closed doors. His message to young entrepreneurs is clear: the tools to build something meaningful are already in your hands, and you do not need anyone’s approval to start using them.
The Branded Event
Tyler recently put his philosophy into practice by organizing an in-person event called Branded. The event brought together sports industry professionals — both young and established — to talk about new ways to work in sports. For the students and young professionals in the audience, it was eye-opening to see how many different career paths exist beyond the traditional route. For the older professionals, Tyler says the event was rejuvenating — they got to see the energy and innovation coming from the next generation.
Balancing Where You Are and Where You Want to Be
When Ethan asks about the biggest challenge Tyler faces as a young entrepreneur, his answer is refreshingly honest: the daily tension between where he is right now and where he wants to be. Running a sports marketing agency means dealing with doomsday scenarios in his head — imagining all his clients leaving at once, or the business going up in flames. But Tyler has learned to channel that anxiety into motivation rather than paralysis. The key, he says, is staying focused on the work in front of you while keeping the bigger vision alive in the background.
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Related Episodes You Might Enjoy
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- RJ Parrish: Build the Life You Want. One Step at a Time
- Matt LeBris: Turn Failure into Fuel for Success
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