Consider supporting Sounder at Heart
It’s now been about 18 months since I made the rather difficult decision to take Sounder at Heart independent. You’ve probably heard me say it plenty of times before, but it’s worked out better than I ever could have imagined.
As we sit here ready to close the books on 2024, though, I can’t help but look at the media landscape and see what seems like a pretty bleak situation. While Sounder at Heart is on firm footing, we’re seeing more and more outlets falling by the wayside. I see extremely talented journalists out of work. I see media companies cowering in fear. That we aren’t dealing with that is a testament to our subscribers.
If I do say so myself, I think we’ve created some of the smartest and most engaging content of anyone covering MLS. We have award-winning authors penning essays. We have a robust team of folks covering the Reign. When times have called for it, we’ve also done our best to hold the Sounders accountable. When things are going well, we aren’t afraid to celebrate that either. No one else has built a community quite like this one.
The only way it continues to grow and improve is if lots of people contribute.
Effectively all of our revenue comes from subscribers and while that is proving sustainable, consistent growth is key to our survival.
As a free subscriber, you still get access to the vast majority of what we produce and we don’t have any immediate plans to change that. But if you’d like to support what we’re doing, please consider becoming a paid member or maybe consider buying a membership for someone else!
Plans start as low as $25/year which gets you access to stories you aren’t getting now.
At the $80/year level you’ll get access to our members-only Discord that seems to be proving pretty popular, where we occasionally break news, share information that’s not quite ready for the rest of the world and generally have a pretty good time. There are a couple of other perks, too, like discounted merch and free stickers!
We’ve got other plans that are a bit more expensive and include things like a subscription to our partners in independent soccer Backheeled.com that start at $225/year.
If you’ve gotten this far, you’re probably a pretty dedicated reader. Whether or not you become a paid member, we appreciate your support.