When Sounder at Heart went independent almost exactly three years ago, we did so with a promise to maintain our status as the best local coverage of any North American soccer market. We like to think we fulfilled that promise.
Although we’ve endured some recent bumps, we have managed to consistently expand and improve our coverage of teams like the Seattle Sounders, Seattle Reign, Tacoma Defiance and Ballard FC. We’ve also built a robust podcast network that now publishes 3–5 times per week and we’ve even launched a print publication that has published two issues.
What makes Sounder at Heart stand out, I believe, is our commitment to providing comprehensive coverage of the teams we cover and creating a robust community around that coverage. That means showing up at training almost every day, attending every match possible, sharing virtually every interview and providing a level of analysis that befits the best soccer market in the United States.
To make sure we keep this going, though, we need support from readers like you. Almost all of what we write is in front of a paywall. We do that because we’ve come to see most of what we do more as a community asset rather than simply a product. We want to be accessible to as many people as possible and have been able to do this without relying on programmatic ads. But that costs money.
In order to maintain a professional standard, we pay competitive rates for every piece of content we run. That includes stories, photos, podcasts, video and even editing.
Most of you, I suspect, have already heard this spiel before. But if even you are already a subscriber, I’d urge you to at least make sure the payment method you have on file is up to date. If you’re in a position to increase your support, there are a variety of ways that include leaving us a tip, buying merch or a magazine, or even upgrading your membership to a higher tier.
The only way stories like this are possible is through the support of readers like you. Support independent soccer journalism by becoming a subscriber to Sounder at Heart.
For those of you who aren’t currently subscribers and are curious about the various tiers, here’s a quick rundown:
- Member: This is our free tier and will still get you access to most of what we produce. From time to time we do put stories behind a “free-wall” that requires this membership, but you can also sign up for any of our mailing lists and get stories delivered directly to your inbox.
- Backer: These plans start at $30/year or $3/month and get you access to everything we produce. The biggest difference is that you get access to the Sounder at Heart Podcast Network RSS feed, which has all of our podcasts in one place and has a lot fewer ads.
- Supporter: This is the plan that honestly does the most to support our operation. It costs $75/year or $7/month and comes with a couple of added bonuses. The most popular of those is an invitation to our members-only Discord. Even in times like this, it remains a vibrant community where you’ll always find people talking about the Sounders and Reign. You’ll also be able to submit questions for the Nos Audietis mailbag episodes, sign up for free stickers and get discounts on merch.
- Advocate: At $215/year or $20/month this plan gets you everything the other plans get plus a complimentary membership to Backheeled.com, which provides some of the best analysis and insight into MLS of anywhere on the internet. You’ll also get free tickets to any live events we host, which we are hoping to start doing again with some regularity now that we have our studio running.
- Benefactor: Our highest tier of membership costs $515/year or $50/month and is, frankly, mostly there if you want to simply support us at a higher level. It does come with a free piece of merch and a callout on our "About Us" page, but that's more about gratitude.
- Sponsor: If you run a local business and want to discuss ways to formally support us, we are also always looking for sponsors and are more than happy to come up with creative ways to help you reach our audience.
I’ll just close this by saying that it has been an amazing journey. I’ve been able to run this site as a full-time job for three years and hope you take as much pride in supporting Sounder at Heart as I do writing here.
