Crowdfunding your way to a sports writing gig

[playthrough]

I know Jeff Gluck a little bit and knew of his new Patreon endeavor, where he has raised more than enough $$ to cover a Nascar season. Didn't know there was an NBA reporter doing it too.

http://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/sports-crowdfunding-patreon-nascar-basketball-subscriptions.php

A writer acquaintance of mine is thinking about trying this, but I wonder if there's that many more people who can pull it off.

 

[Vombatus]

And I wonder when it will go from being a novel idea to being professionally shameful (not resume' worthy too).

 

[Ace]

And I wonder when it will go from being a novel idea to being professionally shameful (not resume' worthy too).

I don't know that it would be professionally shameful if you can get enough people that way to pay for your to write about a team or sport.

 

[wicked]

Pre-GoFundMe, Mark Zuckerman did it for a season with the Nationals after he was laid off by the Washington Times. Many were skeptical about it ... and then he was hired by CSN.

 

[Moderator1]

Pre-GoFundMe, Mark Zuckerberg did it for a season with the Nationals after he was laid off by the Washington Times. Many were skeptical about it ... and then he was hired by CSN.

Zuckerman, but yeah.

And this was seven years ago, so it isn't exactly a novel idea. Others have done it between then and now.

Mark now covers the Nats for MASN. Pretty sure CSN did away with their Nats (and I think Caps) beat person. Which boggles my mind but that's another story

 

[wicked]

Yeah. Fail on my end. I knew that. And I fixed it.

 

[Moderator1]

Zero worries, just didn't want anyone thinking it was the Facebook guy.

That year he crowdsourced and stayed on the beat was, I believe, his 10th year in BBWAA and got him his Hall of Fame vote. He's very good, very knowledgable. When I'm slammed and don't have time to read all the Nats coverage, he's the one person I go to regularly.

 

[justgladtobehere]

CSN New England dumped Sean McAdam as its Red Sox beat writer at the end of last year. He covered only half of road games last year and expected to do even fewer games this year. Are the cutbacks a Comcast thing?

 

[wicked]

Comcast seems to be going more toward talking heads-style programming at its RSNs, de-emphasizing news. New England's prime-time programming as of next month looks like it'll be First Take-lite.

 

[maumann]

I applaud Jeff's innovative idea for trying to remain in the business. However, there are a few issues I see, some he can control and others he cannot. First, let's talk expenses. He's now in Albuquerque, N.M. My average expense report for a race weekend from a major hub, Atlanta, ran somewhere around $1,250 for flight, car rental, hotel and food for races to which I couldn't drive. From here, I'm within a day's drive of everywhere from Daytona to Richmond, or pretty close to half of the schedule.

Gluck can get to Phoenix and perhaps Texas without flying. So you're talking about expenses of $50,000 minimum per season before you even start to think about putting anything in your own pocket, even with frequent flier miles and hotel points.

If I'm a potential reader/purchaser, how is he going to offer a unique "insider's report" that someone will pay for AND RENEW when he's 2,000 miles from where the stories are happening -- back in the team shops in the greater Charlotte area? You'd have to be pretty damn connected. Maybe Jeff is, but there are a lot of other folks still pounding the same beat, but they're right where the action's happening. Bob Pockrass, Lee Spencer, Brant James, etc. can bang on doors and ask questions and attend news conferences in person. There aren't the numbers there used to be in the media center, but the people still hanging on aren't going to want to lose customers to you.

And perhaps the biggest issue: the audience that gives a damn about your niche sport is rapidly shrinking. NASCAR's issues have been discussed in detail in other threads, but the sport's decline shows no signs of slowing, even as the front office continues to meddle with the product. Sponsorship is drying up for even the biggest teams. The latest NASCAR TV ratings show another double-digit decrease in viewership. There's no Gordon, no Stewart, nobody to move the needle. Nobody gives a damn about Kyle Larson or Daniel Suarez.

So your costs are going up while your potential revenue is drying up. I'm not saying you can't find that one person willing to foot the bill because they desperately want to read everything you write, but the chances of finding said cash cow is like trying to put an NFL team in Las Vegas. Or something like that.

You're going to be busting your butt with odds decidedly against you. But obviously some niches are working. I just don't think NASCAR commands that kind of audience any more.

 

[playthrough]

Good stuff, @maumann . I think the decline of NASCAR media numbers helps Jeff -- there aren't many regular reporters left and a percentage of those are homers. He doesn't appear afraid to say if something stinks out there. And his interactive-ness (interactivity?) is very strong. He has a massive twitter following, which is pretty much a prerequisite for getting something like this off the ground.

But you hit the key word -- renew. The second year is the mark of whether this works. In the first year you'll get money from family, friends and some colleagues, but most of that will fade away. Gotta get the paying readers coming back. I think he will, though like you said it might never be a very profitable enterprise. Which maybe isn't even at the top of his mind right now. He's staying in the biz, which is a feat in itself.

 

[wicked]

All that seems to matter anymore is that your "brand" (ugh) remains relevant, and a good avenue to doing so is to still have your work out there -- even on a low-rent site like Bleacher Report.

What is Patreon's subscription model? Assuming it's a permanently recurring monthly payment, that makes it less likely people will cancel after a year.

 

[CD Boogie]

I was initially thrown by the idea of crowd-sourcing your career, but the more I've thought about it, the more I like it. It's definitely an odd venture, but the marketplace will determine whether it's wanted or needed. If he can get people to be his patrons, then it's not much of any difference from a writer or other artist who gets subsidized by grants, scholarships or the patronage of people who appreciate his work.

 

[SFIND]

So they get money from readers for content they publish on their personal sites? Seems pretty similar to what Kovacevic did, right? Why not just go to outright subscription model for their own sites?

 

[maumann]

The biggest problem with a subscription-based model is determining a price point, especially in a venture that is unique and untested. What's the maximum price you can charge to create the widest possible audience? $50? $20? $10? $1.98? If you aren't sure what the market is willing to pay, you can either be wildly over-optimistic or worse, undersell yourself. I have no idea how many people give a hoot about today's NASCAR. It's definitely 75 percent less than did a decade ago -- and not coming back any time soon.

In this case, Jeff may be able to rely on the deep pockets of a small percentage of fanatical NASCAR fans/family/friends willing to part with a larger sum and make up the difference with skinflints and cheapskates who live their lives vicariously through sarcastic Twitter comments. In other words, members of the media.

It's actually brilliant strategy. Let the market decide what the content is worth rather than arbitrarily choosing its value. But ... if people eventually believe your content isn't worth the time, energy and cost you're putting out to create it and you can't sustain the pay model, you're still just circling the drain more slowly than getting whacked by a media conglomerate and taking that two-week severance.

 

[Cosmo]

Zuckerman, but yeah.

And this was seven years ago, so it isn't exactly a novel idea. Others have done it between then and now.

Mark now covers the Nats for MASN. Pretty sure CSN did away with their Nats (and I think Caps) beat person. Which boggles my mind but that's another story

Tarik El-Bashir is covering the Caps for CSN-MA, but I don't think he travels everywhere. It's a hybrid TV-web reporting role. No idea about the Nats, since I don't really follow them.