Ever since Sounder at Heart went independent two years ago, subscriptions have been our lifeblood, accounting for about 90% of our revenue. This model has worked well. I’ve been able to turn this into my full-time job, while also providing the ability to pay our robust team of contributors for everything published on the site. We now have paid writers, copy editors, podcast producers, photographers and a graphic designer. We're also able to help support other independent brands like the teams that run Lobbing Scorchers and Ride of the Valkyries.
More importantly, at least as far as you are concerned, is that our subscribers also allows us to operate independently and without the pressure of outside influences. The only people we are beholden to are you, our readers. We don’t have to worry about upsetting advertisers or frustrating team officials. On the other side, we don’t need to chase click-bait style stories or fake outrage just to get attention.
Above all, we get to be honest. I like to think that’s what people most appreciate about this site, too.
Over the years, we've been able to evolve into more of a public-radio style model. While there is still some content behind the paywall, virtually everything we write and produce is available to anyone at least willing to sign up for a free account. This allows us to serve our core purpose – informing Sounders and Reign fans – but it is only possible through the widespread support readers like you have given us.
At the same time, Sounder at Heart can only grow and improve if more people choose to support us. If you like what you're reading here or want to see it get even better, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. In addition to supporting what we do, you'll get access to all our content, an invite to our anniversary party (details TBD) as well as the ability to subscribe to our private RSS feed that serves as the unified feed for all three podcasts, includes episodes that don't otherwise appear on the public feed and also doesn't include those programmatic ads.
Speaking of which, your support has also allowed us to delay injecting ads into our site. This creates a much more pleasant reading experience for everyone, saving you the clutter, distraction and slower loading speeds that come with ad-supported websites. We'd love to keep it that way.
I bring this all up now because August is our biggest subscription month. Mostly due to this being our anniversary month, about 30% of our annual revenue comes in during August. Suffice it to say, it’s a pretty important month in terms of our ability to budget for the year.
As it is, most of the people reading this are probably already subscribers. Thank you! If this is your renewal month, we hope for your continued support and I'll simply suggest that you confirm your payment info is up to date. If you want to do more, the easiest thing to do is upgrading your membership. As a reminder, Supporter ($75/year) and above get access to our Discord and there are other cool perks the higher up you go.
For those of you who don’t know, Discord is effectively a private message board. We have about 700 members and it’s very active, with our gamethreads routinely piling up 2,000+ comments. If you want to be where the most conversation is happening, it’s a great place to do it.
If you’d rather support us in other ways, we also have a bunch of affiliate deals that give us a percentage of sales as well as a storefront where you can buy our merch.
Over the last two years, we’ve built something I’m really proud of here. I’m not sure there’s another outlet covering MLS quite like we are and we want to keep improving. That means more audio content, more analysis, more video. But to do that, we need your support.
Thanks for your consideration.
