Meet the new women’s sports magazine that wants you to step away from the algorithm

“(It) was taking a lot of my creative energy, and I knew that I wanted to be working on my own work,” she said.

In April of that year, Mitropoulos quit to go freelance. That’s when she began tinkering with a rebrand of “Snatch,” originally a zine about women’s weightlifting she had created in 2017 for a final project while a student at the University of Southern California, publishing a few issues before sunsetting it in 2020.

In 2024, as women’s sports boomed, Mitropoulos got to work. No more stapled, folded paper — this version of “Snatch” would be over 90 pages, featuring articles and artwork by 36 contributors, with two advertisements, professionally printed and bound and sold for $38.

Mitropoulos released an editor’s version in December 2024, a smaller, self-bound edition to create a proof of concept. Then, she spent much of 2025 soliciting submissions on social media and editing and designing the first issue, an ode to women’s sports fans.

She kept up with her freelance clients to pay the bills, but quit a contract job as a photo booth technician to commit herself to the fledgling magazine. In October, Mitropoulos launched a mail club, a monthly subscription where customers get a different women’s sports-themed print each month — a steady revenue source that allowed her to rent the studio.

Mitropoulos released the first issue at a launch party in December 2025. There are reported pieces on roller derby and the Women’s National Football Conference; personal essays like “Healing from half court” and “The 2019 FIFA women’s world cup definitely made me gay”; a photo series about WNBA fashion; a crossword; poetry.

While contributors and readers discovered “Snatch” on social media, Mitropoulos hasn’t posted the articles online. The soft matte cover, the photography, the design all require handheld, in-person reading.

“I just am an analog girl,” Mitropoulos said in December. “I also do think there’s a huge resurgence for anti-algorithm content.”

Mitropoulos sold all 300 copies of the first run within three weeks, making back the approximately $10,000 she invested to make issue one and then some.

It quickly became clear that “Snatch” had tapped into a world of writers and artists — mostly women and members of the LGBTQ+ community — with something to say about this moment in sports.

Mitropoulos received 72 submissions for issue one and 85 pitches for issue two, far more than could fit in a single magazine.

One of those pieces came from Provvidenza Catalano, a Los Angeles-based teacher and performance artist whose piece about hosting Angel City FC’s pride night opened the first issue.

“I think it’s really important to specifically document women’s sports at this time,” Catalano said. “Having the stories of the players and the teams, but also the world around it and the people that are around it.”

There’s a common thread to many of the “Snatch” contributors and readers: Women and nonbinary and transgender people like Catalano who always loved sports, played sports, but never felt like sports loved them back — until they found Angel City FC, or the PWHL, or Ellie the Elephant.

“I had to live my whole life knowing no one cared about the sport I played, but if my brother played it, they cared about it,” said Mitropoulos’ partner, Elizabeth Limonta, who played college basketball and now works as a nurse, helping with Snatch in her spare time. “Circuits are changing in people’s brains.”

Some contributors are professional artists and writers, others are seeing their work published for the first time.

“There are media empires around men’s sports, and we’re starting to see things like Snatch pop up in women’s sports,” said Anne Paglia, 28, a freelance copywriter and Mitropoulos’ former roommate, whom she recruited to edit the second issue. “There’s definitely opportunity for more of it.”

Jules Fennell, a Connecticut-based oil painter, typically paints portraits, and had never thought about painting women playing sports until she saw Mitropoulos’ call for contributors on social media.

“So much of the way that you’re taught to depict the figure, and especially the female figure, in these traditional artistic practices, is sort of in stillness and in neutrality,” Fennell said.

“Snatch” got her itching to paint women in motion. She pitched Mitropoulos on a 24×36 inch oil painting of a college rugby game. Thirty hours of work later, it landed on the cover of the second issue.

Another artist, Heidi Hicks, illustrated the roller derby piece in issue one and a story about Irish sea swimming in issue two — their first contribution to a print magazine.

“I personally have not seen the integration of art and sport in a magazine in the way that Sophia has done,” Hicks said.

Mitropoulos doesn’t exclusively frame “Snatch” as a queer women’s sports magazine, “but you have to know that that’s the room you’re in,” she said. In the same way that women’s sports cannot be separated from the LGBTQ portion of its fanbase — even as it grows and widens its crowds — “Snatch” cannot be separated from queer culture.

“That’s how we live our lives,” Mitropoulos said.

There is also the political context in which Mitropoulos has created “Snatch.” While she worked on getting the magazine off the ground, more than two dozen states have restricted or outright banned transgender athletes, and transgender and LGBTQ+ rights have come under attack by the Trump administration.

“What sucks is that leagues are backing out on their stances on trans athletes, but I’m not a league, so I don’t have to change my stance on trans athletes, and I think that’s where indie publishing can benefit,” Mitropoulos said. “There is nobody else in charge of me.”

On a Saturday in April, a few weeks after launching issue two, Mitropoulos arrived at her studio to pack magazine orders, while Limonta sat at the desk in gloves, folding miniature zines.

Mitropoulos made enough in sales of issue one to cover issue two, but like many media companies, she knows the magazine probably won’t be her main source of revenue, which is why she is also working on growing the “Snatch” brand. Mitropoulos’ studio is covered in projects in progress: the mini zine, a notepad Mitropoulos is experimenting with hand-gluing herself, next month’s mail club.

“What else can we make in the creative world?” Mitropoulos said. “That’s a fun challenge for me as a designer.”

She learned a lot between issues one and two — to tighten deadlines, to bring in Paglia as editor, to get a trolley for delivery day. She keeps a document full of positive feedback she has received from readers, like a teacher with a transgender student in Nebraska and a fan just getting into women’s sports, a reminder that her work will find its audience.

But Mitropoulos still has plenty to figure out. She knows she needs to ramp up her marketing. She needs to find a lawyer (just in case), set up a subscription system for the magazine, finish the style guide, get “Snatch” in stores, get more readers.

“It’s definitely scary,” she said. “But also, I think it’s just really fun.”

Mitropoulos still does freelance design and social media work, which helps keep the lights on, as does her partner’s health insurance. But she dreams of making hires of her own, of bringing in people who can do marketing and accounting and keep the show running if she takes a vacation.

For now, Mitropoulos shuts herself in her studio each day and gets to work, emerging nearly 10 hours later, only when she runs out of potable water. She imagines issue three — slated for this fall — and dreams up the next mail club print, the next launch party.

“For me as an artist, it very much feels like my magnum opus,” Mitropoulos said. “But also, Snatch has become the conduit for other people to share their stories.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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