Why The Minnesota Star Tribune built Strib Varsity, a high school sports coverage news product
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To say Minnesotans like their high school sports is a bit like saying it gets cold up there. Technically true, but it hardly captures the intensity.
Minnesota ranks 10th in the country for student participation in high school sports. According to 2022-23 data from the National Federation of State High School Associations, Minnesota has a little over 219,000 actively participating high school students athletes. For a state with about 6 million people, Minnesota outranks Massachusetts (population 7 million) and is just behind Michigan (population 10 million).
However, only a small number of the games and young Minnesotan athletes’ achievements are covered by news outlets.
In The Minnesota Star Tribune’s case, readers’ keen interest in high school sports was an opportunity to build something new and useful for readers: Strib Varsity. The website provides robust and dedicated coverage of high school sports, while also presenting the newspaper with new revenue opportunities.
After its launch, high school sports coverage drove some of the highest subscription conversion rates at the newspaper, according to Sydney Lewis, associate product manager at the Minneapolis-based news organization.
Prior to Strib Varsity launching in 2025, the paper had operated 17 school-specific websites called “High School Hubs” for over a decade, generating significant page views but limited revenue.
Three reasons Strib Varsity works
- Strib Varsity articles convert casual readers to subscribers at four times the rate of other Minnesota Star Tribune content.
- Subscriptions to Strib Varsity create a bridge from sports-focused content to general news coverage. Single-user and family (up to four users) plans also include full access to the main newspaper (website, app and eEdition).
- New advertising opportunities resulting from Strib Varsity (like through livestreaming and sponsorships) can be focused on a location or reach the entire subscriber base.
Newsroom overview
The Minnesota Star Tribune is the state’s largest daily newspaper with about 71,000 daily print subscribers, 102,000 digital subscribers and 123,000 Sunday subscribers. The publication has won multiple Pulitzer Prizes and its roots trace back to 1867 when the first edition of the Minneapolis Tribune was printed.
In 2024, the Star Tribune launched a major redesign and rebranding that included changing its name from Minneapolis to Minnesota Star Tribune to better reflect its focus on the state. It embraced a new logo, typography, its nickname (known to Minnesotans as “the Strib”) and launched a duck-themed mascot named “Stribby.”
Problem: Capitalizing on high-engagement content
Before launching Strib Varsity, the Minnesota Star Tribune was operating 17 school-specific High School Hubs websites. It lacked a centralized platform and struggled to convert high page views into paying subscribers. This decentralized approach made it difficult to monetize an audience that clearly valued the content.
The newsroom saw a clear opportunity.
“There are over 200,000 high school athletes in the state of Minnesota, so we see Strib Varsity reach communities and families all across the state,” says Lewis. “College and professional sports just don’t have the same reach as high school sports do in our state.”
There’s also more competition to cover professional sports.
“If [Strib Varsity] ventured into professional sports, we would be competing against some pretty big players,” says Lewis. Minnesotans have a lot of places they go to for information about their favorite teams. For high school sports, for the most part, that place is us.”
Solution: A centralized subscription platform
Strib Varsity consolidates high school sports content into a single platform, which offers free access to statistics, scores, standings and schedules for all Minnesota high school sports, while game livestreams and stories require a paid subscription. The site also has a calendar of upcoming games and is searchable by sports hubs or schools.
Pricing structure (as of January 2026):
- $24 per month
- $50 per year (discounted by 80%)
- $140 per year for a shared plan with up to four users
Strib Varsity is available via desktop and has iOS and Android apps. All subscriptions include access to StarTribune.com, the app and eEdition.
The platform was built with scalability in mind.
“On the product side, we’re building Strib Varsity in a way that the architecture can support an investment like this in other verticals of the newsroom, even outside of sports,” Lewis says. “We will definitely explore what a Varsity-like product could look like for food, politics, outdoors, etc., but for now we’re focused on making Varsity as strong as it can be.”
Impact: Subscription growth and conversion
Since launching in August 2025, Strib Varsity has generated revenue results for the Minnesota Star Tribune’s subscription business.
“Our North Star as a company is subscriptions.” Lewis says. “As we’re thinking about new features for [2026], it’s all about [adding] user value for our consumer growth. Our advertising teams are strategizing around how new users, return visits from existing users, etc. will help drive revenue.”
The platform drives both subscription and advertising revenue. Strib Varsity subscriptions in Q4 2025 represent about 11% of total subscriptions for the newspaper.
More significantly, conversion rates are high: “We’re already seeing a conversion rate on Varsity articles 4 times higher than on Star Tribune articles,” Lewis says. “We’re happy with the conversions we’re seeing so far on articles and livestreams.”
Strib Varsity’s high school sports coverage also generates more reader engagement than professional teams, according to Lewis.
“Even looking at some of our biggest sports in the state like the Vikings or Timberwolves, we see more engagement on our high school sports coverage,” Lewis says.
Verdict: Strong model for markets with niche interests
Strib Varsity’s model is a compelling approach for newsrooms with robust product and technology support in markets where there’s a high-interest topic, like high school sports. It also shows how existing products can evolve and grow.
By centralizing the system and their high school sports coverage, the newspaper offered audiences a product that improved readers’ experience and added value — no site like this exists in Minnesota.
Allowing some free access to Strib Varsity — for stats, scores and calendars — is helpful to casual site visitors and can help convert more dedicated high school sports fans.
A challenge with this product might be subscriber retention as families age out of high school sports. However, combining access to other Star Tribune content may help retain those readers as subscribers if the newspaper can continue to convey value through other news coverage.
There will also always be new high school athletes, meaning there will always be an audience to reach with the Strib Varsity product.
Any newsroom considering investing in a similar news product should start the way the Star Tribune did — with clear goals, data to support the strategy and an understanding of the existing audience’s needs.
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