P2Daily: 200 Minutes of Original Content Each Week on Pirates Prospects

On Wednesday, our paywall quietly went up.

If you suddenly can’t access the Premium content, check your email records to see when you last paid us for a subscription. If you don’t have access, your old subscription is most likely expired.

From sometime late in 2019 until now, we haven’t been collecting new subscriptions. We have survived on our core subscribers during that time, which is astounding when you consider everything that has happened since 2019.

From sometime late in 2019 until recently this year, this site has been in rebuild mode.

If I’m honest, I really like the “Build” term that Ben Cherington is using for the Pirates. Right now I’m building something that this site has never seen.

But, if I’m also honest, this site needed both a rebuild and a build. As I stepped away to plan the future, the site dropped off in the present. We had to rebuild back to our old level of coverage and updates, to establish a platform from which to build the bigger site.

I’ll talk about this a bit more in my column in today’s article drop.

What I found out this week is that we are currently producing 200 minutes a week of original readable content. That includes about 40 minutes of premium articles each week.

Each day we release our daily articles at 8 AM. Those are P2Daily, Pirates DVR, Prospect Watch, and Pirates Discussion. In total, the read time for those is 15 minutes a day — assuming you like to read through the lengthy discussions. The other three give you a ten minute daily update of the system.

The daily coverage is free, and my goal will be to finalize expanding on that the rest of the year. In addition to those four articles, we will have a set daily feature each day. We currently have started that with First Pitch on Mondays and Pirates Prospects awards on Tuesdays, as two examples. We will also aim to have a free daily player feature.

In total, if you read the free daily content, it will average about 22 minutes of read time each day.

If you put that in perspective, each day we are releasing enough content to occupy you for the length of a weekly sitcom episode.

The premium articles on Tuesday, along with the article drop today, will combine for about 40+ reading minutes this week for subscribers. These articles are always our best, with the most work put in. They come before the many free articles we produce.

If you put the premium articles in perspective, each week we are releasing content that is the length of an hour show with commercials, or the length of an album.

The best thing is that there are no commercials here. Everything on this site is Pirates Prospects content and updates. We’re not flooding you with ads — instead relying fully on subscriptions to fund the overall site.

I know this site is an escape for a lot of people. I see the traffic numbers while you guys are supposed to be at 9-5 jobs every Monday through Friday.

Some of you escape daily and often to this site. Some escape a few times a week. Some a few times a month.

Some only check us out when I’ve said something to unsettle a large portion of Pirates fans.

What you want when you come here is something to take your mind away from life, and focus on the thing we all have in common — a deep love for the game of baseball.

So, we’ve got 200 minutes of original readable content each week, not counting all of the transactions, reactions, or any other article we couldn’t possibly plan. That gives 3-4 hours for those of you who read everything.

It also gives plenty of options each day/week/month for those of you who need quick escapes.

Our next article drop hits the site this afternoon. I hope you’ll sign up for a subscription to unlock all of our content and support our work as we continue to build.

If you think you have a plan, check your email for the last receipt you got from Pirates Prospects or Pittsburgh Baseball Network. If you’re having any issues, email me at tim@piratesprospects.com.