New benefits, a donation option, and more.
August 5, 2020 by Charlie Eisenhood in Other with 0 comments
Today, Ultiworld is launching its fourth annual membership drive.
Normally, our membership drive takes place in May, just before the College Championships, but it’s far from a normal year. With the sport sidelined due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the future hazy, we’ve grappled with when and even whether to do our annual drive.
But we decided that it was too important for us not to do it. More than ever, we need the support of our readers to operate.
So we are asking you to sign up for a subscription and support the journalism and video coverage that Ultiworld provides to the ultimate community. Our subscriptions offer much more than the largest collection of game footage in the sport: you will get exclusive articles (from features to analysis and beyond); subscriber-only podcasts like Sideline Talk; bonus segments from all of our free podcasts, including Sin The Fields and Deep Look and our brand new limited run podcast Coach Speak; videos analysis in the Film Room; In The Zone, a monthly business newsletter; a weekly Mailbag column; the ability to turn off ads and improve your site experience; and more. You can learn more and sign up right here.
New this year: we have a brand new subscription donation option! If you’re already a subscriber or just want to support what we do, you can donate towards the cost of a subscription for a youth player, student, or a group of your choosing. Ultiworld is matching all donations one-to-one, so you can double your impact. A $40 donation, for example, will get two players an annual Mini subscription. We’re counting donations towards our membership goal!
We know that not everyone can afford to subscribe or donate, especially now. You can apply to receive a donated subscription here.
One other note — our subscription benefits have changed slightly:
- Full subscribers will now get access to Ultiworld’s Discord community (we moved from Slack recently). Previously, this was only a benefit for Plus subscribers. We’re excited to get a big influx of new people that love to watch, think about, and talk about ultimate.
- Plus subscribers are now the only group that can remove ads from the website.
You may remember our subscription drive from last May. What have we done since then? Here’s just a few selected items of note:
- Produced high-quality live video coverage of the Under-24 World Championships, including all three finals
- Continued to expand our livestreaming capabilities, integrating more graphics, stats, cameras, and video features
- Livestreamed and reported on the Pan-American Ultimate Championships
- Livestreamed at the Division III College Championships for the first time ever
- Started the “Send It Back” video series, featuring live player commentary over classic games of the past
- Provided extensive video and reported coverage of the college and club seasons
- Hosted the third annual High School National Invite with expanded livestreaming
- Produced the LA Throwback Color of Ultimate showcase game
- Launched the Female Writers Development program
- Created disc golf subscriber-exclusive content on Ultiworld Disc Golf
So why sign up? We want to be able to continue to offer more and deeper coverage of all aspects of the sport. We want to be able to pay reasonable compensation to the hard-working editorial staff instead of asking them to write or edit for a small stipend and their love of the sport. No one is getting rich from Ultiworld, but we are still looking to find a way to receive reasonable payment for the value of the content we provide.
You can subscribe for as little as $3.99 a month. Get two months free when you sign up for an annual subscription.
Think about all the Ultiworld articles you’ve read and shared over the years, and all the extra tournaments that you’ve followed because of our coverage.
Although we don’t know when competitive ultimate will return, we expect to continue to be a major livestreaming provider for USA Ultimate, WFDF, and other tournament organizers.
A monthly subscription is the best way for readers to support all of our initiatives. If you enjoy our strategy articles but also want to support more youth coverage, a subscription is a great way to do it! If you religiously watch all of our club women’s footage, but want to support D-I and D-III college women’s coverage, a subscription is a great way to do it! If you appreciate all of our reporting but you really just want to make sure Pat & Tad can survive another year of Sin The Fields, a subscription is a great way to do that too.
Our goal is to add 700 new subscribers by Friday, August 28th.
Subscribing is super easy — check out our subscription page to learn more and sign up. Thank you so much for your support!
If you have questions for me about subscribing, the economics of ultimate journalism, or anything else, don’t hesitate to ask below in the comments or by email at [email protected].
