One of the scariest parts of taking Silver Seven independent was figuring out how to cover our costs. While none of the staff write for the site for financial gain, there are nonetheless bills to pay to keep the servers on. I’m also a believer in compensating people for their labour. It may not always be much, but I do want all of my staff to see some financial recompense for their efforts.
When we left the SB Nation mothership, we were faced with the daunting task of self-funding. At the time, I wrote that we believed in the ideal of keeping most of our content free, and that we preferred not to run ads or incorporate sponsored content. We would go as far as our community’s direct support carried us.
After a year, I’m proud to say that, thanks to all of you, we’ve been able to accomplish virtually everything we set out to do.
A few highlights:
-We continued our long-standing comprehensive coverage of the Ottawa Senators, despite their attempts to kill our fandom with their play this past season
-We delivered weekly updates on every Sens prospect, with a special weekly feature dedicated to Belleville coverage
-We published French content on a weekly basis throughout the season thanks to our partnership with La Brigade, and Stewart Sabourin in particular
-We expanded to cover PWHL Ottawa, with weekly recaps and in-depth analysis as the team made its final (ill-fated) push towards the play-offs
-We also delivered twelve pieces of paid-subscriber exclusive content. While I’m proud of those blogs, I wasn’t quite able to live up to the quantity that we’d promised. Managing the blog, combined with an increasingly busy personal life after the arrival of my second daughter, left me with less time to devote to premium content than I would have liked. I could have restricted a few more of the excellent longform pieces, but that would not have been in keeping with the spirit of the site or our subscriber structure. One of my primary goals for the next twelve months is to make good on the promise of subscriber-specific content.
If you are already a paid subscriber, none of this is possible without you – thank you. If you are a reader of the blog, but not yet a subscriber, please consider subscribing. We also understand that yet another financial commitment might not be in the cards for everyone. Our commitment to you is that we’ll keep Silver Seven as free as possible: Ottawa Senators (and beyond) coverage by the people, for the people.
As the first few renewals hit on Friday, I was filled with tremendous gratitude and pride. That so many of you continue to support us after all these years means more than you can imagine. We have a wonderful community that I look forward to interacting with every day.
To another year of Silver Seven!