A week ago we announced that Giant Eagle was joining us as our corporate sponsor. I’m very excited by that, in part because my family shopped at Giant Eagle all the time when I lived in Pennsylvania, but mostly because they’re such a great fit for what we’re going for here.
When we posted about sponsorship opportunities last month, it was to add revenue to make sure the site could continue in the future without being harmed by massive subscription fluctuations that were out of our control (RE: The Pirates pissing everyone off and leading to fans cutting all spending on following the team). But we also wanted to work with local companies in the Pittsburgh area who could benefit from the sponsorship by gaining loyalty and recognition from our readers.
Giant Eagle was the perfect fit for the corporate sponsor, as they’re in locations covered by about half of our daily readers. Following the announcement, we got so many comments with people either expressing that they would be shopping at Giant Eagle, or people who already shopped there and added one more reason to make that their favorite grocery store.
We still have other sponsorships available, including the chance to sponsor some of our most popular features, including the nightly Prospect Watch, live team coverage, and my columns, which now run at least twice a week, and more often during the busy weeks, providing you with extra value.
We’ve discounted the prices below from our last posting, and have a few special offers. The prices below are based on the annual rate with a three month commitment. However, we’re offering end of the season pricing on some of the features below, where you can get about five weeks or more with your one month sponsorship. This would be a great way to do a trial sponsorship on the site while getting some added value.
If you own or work for a company that is interested in a sponsorship, email tim@piratesprospects.com. Or if you know a company that might be interested, send them this link.
Here are the available sponsorships:
Sidebar – $250/month
These 300×300 ads would feature on the sidebar of every page of the site. There would be a limit of three sidebar ads. You can also double up for a 300×600 ad.
Columns and Features – Variable Pricing
We have daily and weekly columns and features on the site throughout the season and the offseason. Each of those can be sponsored for the following prices. We’re also getting toward the end of the season, with a little over one month left for some of these features. We can offer end of season pricing on those, getting the remaining time (about 5+ weeks) for the one month price.
Weekly Features – $250/month
Weekly Columns
The 21
Weekly Q&As
Live Pirates and Minor League Team Coverage *HIGH PAGE VIEWS*
More weekly features to come
Daily Features – $500/month
Tim Williams Column (At least 2x per week) *HIGH PAGE VIEWS*
Prospect Watch (One per day during the minor league season) *HIGH PAGE VIEWS*
Morning Report (One per day during the season)
The Mid-Season Prospect Guide
For those of you who have pre-ordered the mid-season prospect guide, the eBook will be released at the start of next week.
When we first announced it, I was debating on a time to release the book, ultimately settling on after the trade deadline. The funny thing is, at the time it looked like they might be adding to the system as sellers. As the month went on, it got to the point where they had to decide between being buyers or sellers, and then obviously they ended up being buyers.
Right now the only impact on the book was removing Taylor Hearn (who we had ranked 8th overall) and adding a new player at the end of the book. There will also be an exclusive article at the start of the book, looking at the status of the system after the current draft, the recent trade deadline, and the graduations this year.
As for the two PTBNLs from the Kela and Archer trades, we’ll make a decision on updates to the book when those are announced, depending on the time of the announcement and the impact they have on the book. Obviously the impact would be that one player is deleted, everyone moves up a spot, and there would be a new guy at spot number 50.
If you haven’t pre-ordered the book, you can get it here. We’re still offering the 2018 Prospect Guide eBook for free for everyone who pre-orders the book. That will be available via download in the email you get following your purchase, and that same download link can be used to download the mid-season guide when it is released.
Patreon Column
We had a lot of people asking about how they could help the site beyond a site subscription or products offered on the site. So we set up a Patreon page where those people could make monthly contributions, while offering something in return.
The people in the $10 per month tier get an exclusive Patreon column. That will go out this afternoon to everyone in that tier. Anyone who signs up today will also get the column, and next month’s column as well.
There’s also a $100 tier for anyone who contributes $100 or more. That tier gets a years worth of Patreon columns, along with a phone call from myself to discuss the Pirates. We had four people make this contribution last month, and I’ll be emailing out today to set up those calls for this weekend.
If you’d like to sign up over there to contribute more to the site, and get something extra in return, you can do so on our Patreon page.
Pay It Forward
We still have a lot of Pay It Forward subscriptions left to be claimed from the last month. The Pay It Forward program is where people can purchase discounted gift subscriptions for strangers in certain fields — teachers, police officers, nurses, etc — or for students who can’t afford a subscription.
The subscriptions then become available to anyone in those fields who want to claim them. We have subscriptions available for the following:
Students
Teachers
Police
Public Works
Fire and Rescue
Nurses
To claim a subscription, send an email to help@piratesprospects.com with verification of your position (ID card is usually the most popular), and we will send you a code to redeem your subscription.
