This Creator Made a Viral Sports Game in 14 Hours 🌎

Happy Wednesday,

Frank Michael Smith is back! If you don't know Frank, he's one of the most respected sports content creators on the internet (6+ years in, 3.5 million followers, billions of views) or, as I like to call him, the Godfather of TikTok Sports Content.

But this episode isn't about his content; it’s about GeoSports — the sports geography game he vibe-coded in 14 hours on a hungover Sunday in May, which now has 100,000+ people playing it every single day (full disclosure: I'm one of them, and my friends’ group chat has been sending scores basically every morning since it launched).

Today, Frank breaks down how this went from a fun side project to the center of his entire company, what he’s learned about building something with real staying power, and what it means for his future as a creator.

🎧 [Listen to the full episode]

I've used this analogy a lot, but being a solo creator (or really any kind of solo entrepreneur) means you are constantly pushing a huge rock up a hill that has no end. However, the second you step away, the rock stops moving. In fact, if you're away long enough, that rock might even slide back down. That feeling, that existential dread of “if I stop, this all goes to nothing,” is something a lot of us live with every day.

In Frank’s case, he recalls making a video the day he got married. I imagine a lot of it was driven by that same feeling.

But then GeoSports changed that for him. The game has a team working on it and 100,000 people who come back every day without Frank doing much promotion at all. There have been days when he didn't post about it at all and still hit 100,000 players. The rock is moving without him.

That relief, the ability to step away and know that something you built is going to keep growing in your absence, is worth more than most creators realize until they feel it for the first time. And the takeaway for me is less about building a game specifically and more about what it means to create something that doesn't require you to be there every single day for it to keep working.

How do I build more of those things? Truthfully, it’s a question I’m still sitting with.

1. Frictionless beats feature-rich every time.
GeoSports has no tutorial, no push notifications, and it’s not technically even an app. You just type a URL into Google, it comes up, and the only instructions are: five questions, tap where it happened, go. Five Card Draw had prizes (e.g., $150 sneakers every night) and a fraction of the network effect. The lesson Frank drew: when there's a prize, people gatekeep. When there's no prize, people share. Sometimes, less is more.

2. The share score button is the whole business.
53% of people who finish GeoSports click share score. That single feature (optimized to let players post their results to a group chat) is what keeps 100,000 people coming back every day, with no app and no push notifications.

3. Don't bake your personal brand into your product.
Frank has intentionally not pushed GeoSports hard on his biggest channels (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube). The reason: he doesn't want anyone to perceive the game as only existing because of him. He's seen what happens when a creator can't separate themselves from their product; you can't sell it, you can't take a break from it, and it dies when you do. GeoSports gets 100,000 players on days Frank doesn't post about it. That's the point.

4. Vibe coding is real and worth trying.
Frank can't do basic HTML or CSS. He built a game that 100,000 people play daily in 14 hours using Claude. His advice: you have to be specific, you can't be vague, and you're probably going to fail a few times before something works. The basketball shooting game he tried to build before this? Pathetically bad, his words. GeoSports worked anyway. Try to build something; you might surprise yourself.

5. Inspiration is fuel, not a job requirement.
Frank has been posting less content lately. New dad, busy with GeoSports, summer dry spell. But he also stayed up until 1 AM writing a LeBron story because the feed can't go dry for too long. His point, and mine: inspiration is great when it shows up, but this job requires you to sit down and work even when it doesn't. The creators who last are the ones who treat it like a job first and a passion second. Everyone loves sports, but very few treat them like a job (you’re going to have to if you want to make a living talking about them).

The thing that stayed with me longest from this conversation wasn't about the game. It was something Frank said almost offhand, that being a creator is very formulaic at this point. Watch sports, read, pick a topic, film, send to the team, post, repeat. He still loves it, but six years in, it's nice to have success somewhere else.

I think a lot of creators who have been doing this for a while feel that quietly. The content machine is humming, the numbers are good, but there's a creeping question of what comes next, what this looks like in ten years, and whether the only thing standing between the audience and nothing is you showing up tomorrow.

GeoSports is Frank's answer to that question (at least right now). It's not just a game; it's a thing that exists without him, grows without him, and gives him options he didn't have before. That's a different kind of asset than a TikTok following, and it might turn out to be the most valuable thing he's ever built.

🎧 [Listen to the full episode]

📩 And don’t forget: Bottom of the Ninth is back this Friday with the top three stories in sports and business from the week.

See you then,
Tyler & Jake