A Letter To Subscribers Regarding Our New Venture
Dear friends of Basketball Intelligence Thank you for your readership and support during the past 4 years of this newsletter. As you know, we provide curated access to the best NBA coverage on the Internet. In order to do so, we have consistently applied our "Four-I" test: we link only to stories that are informative, insightful, intelligent and interesting. Tens of thousands of you have found us through word of mouth and a shared love of NBA basketball: the best kind of advertising there is! That passion and a clear market hunger for original content like the kind we curate led us to recently launch The Basketball Writers (bballwriters.com, @bballwriters). There, we feature the next generation of great NBA, WNBA, Euroleague and eSports writers (with G-League content coming soon). TBW respects our audience and THE GAME in a hoops haven devoid of ads, popup videos, clickbait, or data selling. We treat our writers fairly by immediately routing 35% of every subscription to the subscriber's designated author (or all equally, depending on the subscriber's choice), while the entire group shares the associated costs. Our owners are on the front lines as the Editorial staff. Basketball Intelligence will remain free. The Basketball Writers is a subscription-based spiritual relative (at a nominal $5/mo. with an Annual plan, but also Monthly and Daily options) so that we can support our alliance of talent and give readers exactly what they deserve. BI & and TBW have the shared goal of enhancing understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of the NBA. By supporting The Basketball Writers, you are also indirectly supporting Basketball Intelligence. Even if you are not ready for or interested in a subscription at this time, you can still help make the pro basketball Internet a better place by spreading awareness. We knew all along that breaking outside our individual influence circles would be our greatest challenge. We're not operating on venture capitalist millions (and all the strings that come attached with it). Our marketing strategy (and budget) is grassroots and realistic. We need positive word-of-mouth and evangelism from satisfied subscribers, those sympathetic to our cause of paying writers fairly and treating our readership respectfully, and those fed up with the exact opposite they see at so many other venues. Can you help? If so, please consider spreading the word at your own personal basketball/sports circles—whether they be social media outlets, friends/family, the proverbial water cooler, etc. Wherever you can put in a good word for us during the coming months, you'll make a huge impact and help us assist more hoops lovers all over the world. Thank you for your consideration as well as your continued support of Basketball Intelligence. And, of course, as always, we wil also be grateful for any assistance you can provide in letting folks know about Basketball Intelligence's free subscriptions. Ray LeBov & The Basketball Writers Team