Former Teacher Tom Grossi’s YouTube Channel Hits 300,000 Subscribers After Going Full Time on the Platform

Who would’ve thought that supporting your favorite National Football League (NFL) team can lead to a growing community of viewers on YouTube? Tom Grossi, 31, only had interest in being a teacher before his eventual YouTube career took off.

“In college for my undergrad, I had the most incredible history professor that I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “It wasn’t a typical history thing. There was no PowerPoints or anything like that; it was just a conversation and it really drove that passion.”

After going full time on YouTube in late 2021, Grossi’s channel rose over 300,000 subscribers in March 2022. The Green Bay Packers fan resides in New York where there are little to no Packers fans. According to Grossi, most football fans in his area were either Jets or Giants fans.

Even his father, David Grossi, wasn’t a Packers fan. “Papa” Grossi is a diehard Cowboys fan. According to Tom Grossi, his father was trying to raise him as a Cowboys fan. But that all changed after the Packers beat the Cowboys when he was only 6.

“I went into school one day and I heard the Packers beat the Cowboys,” Grossi said. “I went home and I told my dad, ‘Wow, Packers beat Cowboys. I’m a Packer’s fan,’ and I never left. So, it was just really out of spite.”

25 years later, Tom Grossi continues to show his support for his favorite team through his self titled YouTube Channel which as of this writing is at 309,000 subscribers. The channel includes content on all things Packers, game predictions, the NFL Draft and so much more.

But it wasn’t always this way. Grossi pursued a career in teaching at State University of New York at New Paltz where he obtained a master’s degree in education. It’s a job that he’s always wanted to have since high school.

“My sophomore year of high school, I had a really great history teacher. The way that he taught it made me enjoy it,” said Grossi.

During his sophomore year, one of his friends joined an improv comedy group. After going to a few shows, he too audition and eventually got in. He no sooner realized comedy may be his true calling.

“I vividly remember one of the first times I was there. We were doing a game and the scene involved in someway that my daughter got kidnapped by a shark. In the mixed of it, I drop to knees and just screamed out at the top of my lungs like a Darth Vader ‘NO!’ as loud as I could. The entire theater was silent, and they looked at me like ‘that was the greatest thing they seen in my entire life.’”

Grossi went on to become the president of the group his senior year and partnered with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB) in Manhattan. According to Grossi, UCB is where some SNL stars got there start.

He was even offered to be part of the group when he graduated. However, his passion for teaching was too strong and he declined the offer.

With no experience in teaching, it was hard to find a job. He eventually got a job teaching social studies at The Ursuline School in New Rochelle according to The Exclaimer. Grossi still had an itch for comedy and decided to try stand up.

“If I can make farming interesting for a hundred or something freshman, then I’ve done a pretty darn good job and I thought I can write some jokes.”

He went on to win Comedy of North Manhattan’s (NOMA) Comedy Contest and performed at some of the biggest comedy clubs in New York including Stand Up NY, Levity Livw and Caroline’s according to Grossi’s bio on tomgrossicomedy.com. Grossi dropped an album of some of his stand up in 2018.

Not too long after he started stand-up, he posted a reaction video of the 2015 NFC Championship Game where the Seahawks came back and beat the Packers to advance Super Bowl XLIV. His podcast, Packast made it’s YouTube debut in August 2015.

It wasn’t until 2018 he started posting regularly on YouTube. In August 2019, Grossi started using the same posting format that he uses today posting five days a week.

“It wasn’t until 2020, which is when I hit 100k that I was like, ‘Huh. Maybe something is happening here. Maybe this is something I can transform into something bigger.’”

Grossi started creating different series to the channel using his story telling and improv skills. After getting constant requests to play Madden, the football video game, on the channel, he introduce his first true series, Coach. It was about Grossi being offered a job as coach of the Green Bay Packers. In order to prove himself worthy, he had to manage the Packers on Madden.

“I came up with the idea of Coach and I was like ‘Maybe I can turn it into a narrative series,'” Grossi said. “I don’t really wanna do it that way. If I’m going to do it, I going to make it weird.”

The series introduced new characters to the channel sparking the beginning of what viewers are call the Grossi Cinematic Universe (GCU). The characters include Tohm, a Vikings fan, Chamas, a Bears fan, and Lommy, a Lions fan.

The series eventually turned away from the Madden game and became a more narrative format. When Season 1 finale went live, Grossi knew what story he wanted to tell. The series became really weird after that.

“It is a lot,” said Grossi. “The people who watch, they might be confused as heck, but they are very passionate about it. Those people are rabid for more and want more of it.”

Although the series may not make as much money as the other content, according to Grossi, he enjoys making new episodes and wants to continue the story. Season four will be starting sometime this summer.

“You see the hours that he puts into it,” said Nick Mayniak, 39, a Dave and Buster bean counter and longtime viewer. “You see the thought that he puts into what he puts out and the effort. When he was a full-time teacher, I don’t know how he could do that.”

Maryniak was introduced to Grossi’s channel after watching one of his reaction videos about three years ago. He became more invested in his takes on Packer’s news. Viewers like Maryniak don’t want to listen to a sports media channel like ESPN. Rather, they would listen to a fan’s perspective with more knowledge on their team.

“I feel like the comparison between some national media and Tom’s approach is really good for me,” Maryniak said. “Wisconsin sports get overlook in a way I don’t appreciate it. I love having somebody that is doing the deep dive for us and is a fan.”

Some new viewers may have found Grossi through his fan reactions to the NFL season. In this series, Grossi embodies the stereotypical fan of a specific team and reacts to the season week by week. Some of these fans may or may not become staple characters to the GCU.

Grossi expanded on this idea by creating a weekly NFC/AFC division series that is based off how teams are doing. Using his improv skills, he brings fans from a certain division together to create an ongoing story throughout the season. In 2020, Grossi brought the NFC and AFC East Saga to life in the form of fans and characters.

Popular characters coming from this season included Bruce, a Giants fan, Springsteen, a Jets fan, Carl, a Patriots fan, and Wildflower Turquoise, a then Washington Football Team fan. The series was so popular, viewers started cheering for other teams to win to expand the story.

“The Jets won a game, and everyone went nuts,” said Grossi. “They were like ‘Oh my god Springsteen is going to wake up from a coma.’ I’m looking at this and I’m excited because now I get to create X, Y and Z.”

This past season, Grossi made an NFC/AFC West Saga which brought teams from both divisions together in a game show like format. Because of how the season turned out, Grossi had to changed character arcs for Diego, the Chargers fan, and Lenny, the Chiefs fan. In this season, Grossi improvised lines for Lenny who went on for five-to-seven-minute monologues. Grossi says the South Saga will be coming next season.

Over the years, Grossi included many guests on his show including the likes of Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy, former Packers halfback Ryan Grant, former Packers TE Jace Sternberger and current Packers QB Kurt Benkert.

“Getting to know the players on a little more of a personal level,” said Maryniak, “I think Ryan Grant and Kurt Benkert are both interesting people. I think I’m a Kurt Benkert fan almost 100% because of getting to know him through Tom.”

In early April, Grossi went to Green Bay and caught some passes from the quarterback. In addition, Grossi sat down with Mark Murphy and talked about last season, recent transactions and the Draft. Back in 2015, Grossi got to interview Murphy for the first time for his podcast after asking him via email on New Year’s Eve. Grossi was offered a Press Pass after that interview but turned them down. Grossi has interviewed Murphy three more times since that day.

“He does a great job of letting his guest speak, never gets mean,” said Maryniak. “He does a good job of showing respect to what the other team is good at. It’s really fun getting a good bird’s eye view of another fan base. That’s something that is relatively rare.”

Viewers may have only just heard of Tom Grossi through the livestream series Clickbait Sports. This series brings five content creators including Grossi, Brandon Perna from ThatsGoodSports, FivePoints Vids, UrinatingTree, and Scooter Magruder together to talk recent sports news around the country. In the end, one of these creators are determined the winner based on the money they make on their individual livestream through donations and gets punished.

“I think of it as a group of good friends trashing on each other teams in a fun way,” said William Moen, 22, a student at UWM who was introduced to Grossi through UrinatingTree. “It’s all done in good nature.”

As the Tom Grossi channel grew larger, Grossi realized that this could be career and he became a full-time content creator in June 2021. His passion for the Green Bay Packers remains strong to this day and continues to post on a weekly basis whether it be a livestream or showing off his story telling talent.

“At this point it’s just going to keep going,” said Grossi. “I think this season is going to be a big one. As it gets bigger and bigger there is going to be cooler opportunities whether it’s to raise more money for charities or different opportunities to do videos. We’re just onward and upward.”