The Barbell Sports Frame
Grow a new sport or product category by pushing it to one extreme of accessibility or difficulty, because the middle never wins.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 88%
Steph Smith frames the sports market as a barbell. At one end sit the tier one sports everyone knows, soccer, basketball, baseball, already in every school. New entrants win by moving deliberately to one extreme. Pickleball took tennis and made it accessible by changing how bouncy the ball is, the size of the court, and the way the paddle feels, so almost anyone could play. Teqball goes the other way, a mix of soccer and ping pong on a curved table producing freak-of-nature clips, roughly four million Facebook followers and YouTube videos with millions of views. Padel does the same by adding a live wall, and Everesting and the 29029 event push difficulty until only around 25% of participants finish, at a price point in the thousands. Steph's explicit analogy is fashion, where fast fashion and premium brands both work and nothing in the middle succeeds.
Origin
Steph offers it on air as 'kind of a frame' while surveying niche sports, drawn from watching pickleball, teqball, padel and Everesting all grow at once from opposite directions.
Core principles
- 01Tier one sports own the middle already, so do not compete there
- 02Accessibility wins by removing skill barriers, not by adding features
- 03Difficulty wins by producing proof that is worth sharing
- 04Fast fashion and premium both work; the middle does not
- 05A low completion rate can be the product, not a defect
How to run it
- 1
Anchor on an existing tier one category
Start from something people already understand. Pickleball is derived from tennis, teqball from soccer and ping pong, padel from tennis with a wall, Everesting from climbing Everest. Familiarity does the explaining so your changes carry the differentiation.
- 2
Choose an end of the barbell and commit
Decide whether you are opening the aperture so more people can participate, or narrowing it so only the most competitive people qualify. These are opposite product roadmaps and you cannot serve both.
Watch out Trying to be both approachable and elite is exactly the middle that fails.
- 3
If going accessible, engineer away the skill barrier
Change the physical constraints that make the original hard. Pickleball altered ball bounciness, court size and paddle feel until just about anyone could play. Enumerate the specific barriers and remove them one by one rather than simplifying the rules generically.
Pro tip Test with people who explicitly could not play the original sport, not with lapsed players.
- 4
If going hard, target a deliberate failure rate
Set difficulty so that finishing is a genuine flex. The founder of 29029 told Sam they made it hard enough that only around 25% of participants would be able to finish, and the event still sells at thousands of dollars with a glamping setup included.
- 5
Optimise for the clip
At the hard end, the growth engine is footage. Teqball spreads because people are almost doing flips to reach the ball, generating videos with millions of views and roughly four million Facebook followers. If the difficulty does not produce shareable proof, it is just friction.
Pro tip Ask what the thirty-second vertical video of your product looks like before finalising the rules.
- 6
Remove constraints on where and with what
Steph notes Everesting works because it needs no equipment and can be done anywhere there is a hill. Reducing location and equipment dependency multiplies the addressable participant base at either end of the barbell.
In the wild
Pickleball took tennis, a game that is pretty hard to do well, and changed three concrete things: how bouncy the ball was, the size of the court, and the way the paddle feels. Nothing about the underlying game concept was novel; the changes were purely about lowering the skill floor.
→ It became the most famous example of a new niche sport, with mass participation from people who would never have taken up tennis.
Teqball combines soccer and ping pong on a large curved table, producing acrobatic play that Steph describes as freak of nature stuff. Separately, Mark from the Hampton community built 29029, an Everesting event where participants repeatedly climb a hill to equal the elevation of Everest, priced in the thousands with glamping accommodation.
→ Teqball reports roughly four million Facebook followers and YouTube videos with millions of views; 29029 is calibrated so only about 25% of participants finish, and Sam is invited to attend one.
Common mistakes
Building the moderate middle version
Steph's fashion analogy is the warning: fast fashion and premium brands both succeed and basically nothing in the middle does. A sport or product that is somewhat easier than the original but not dramatically so gives neither the beginner nor the competitor a reason to switch.
Making it harder without making it visible
Difficulty only compounds if it generates status. Teqball, padel and 29029 all produce evidence, footage or a finish rate, that participants can show off. Raising difficulty in a category that produces nothing shareable just shrinks your market.
Adding equipment or venue dependency
Everesting works precisely because it requires no equipment and can be done anywhere with a hill. Locking participation behind a specialised table, court or facility caps growth even when the format itself is compelling.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders launching a participation category, event, or community product where adoption depends on either mass access or status signalling.
Not ideal for
Businesses whose value comes from being a balanced, general-purpose middle option, such as broad utilities or infrastructure.
From the transcript
“you call tier one sports that everyone knows soccer basketball baseball that have existed for a long time”
“pickle ball basically took tennis or something like it and it made it more accessible right they changed um how bouncy the ball was they…”
“the same way that in like fashion you have fast fashion and then you have the premium Brands and basically nothing in the middle succeeds”
From the episode
Steph Smith: “This opportunity is totally overlooked”
Steph Smith