A friend did a mix of this. They positioned themselves as the best soccer magazine in the country. The only way to get quality sports articles was paying people who were in the zone, so they paid per article instead of hiring full time.

Typical ads pulled in insufficient revenue, so they started selling ad space to sponsors. This was only possible because they built credibility. Credibility based journalism is different to eyeballs and views.

From that credibility, they started selling merchandise and sports equipment.