July 1 marks an important milestone for The Cardinal Nation. It is exactly 12 months since this site returned to independent operation after more than 12 years with the Scout network.
A corporate de-emphasis on baseball – and specifically the minor leagues – turned a move away from the network that had seemed daunting previously into a time-dependent necessity to survive in the manner to which our readers were accustomed.
Behind the scenes, a new site – including message boards, a player database and a subscriber payment system – had to be developed, tested and implemented in just 45 days – during the regular season. To borrow an old line, it was a lot like changing tires on a car rolling down the freeway!
I made the business decision to treat our paying customers as I would have wanted to be treated. All subscriber time paid ahead to Scout was honored here on the new site – even though no payment was received. For new subscribers, prices have remained unchanged since 2005.
To date, I have passed up external advertising, a potential revenue source, again because I know it makes customers unhappy. But, putting it all together, it has been a challenging year financially.
Yet, we never missed a beat in our primary mission.
In the first 365 days here, we have run just over 1,000 articles of all-original content, averaging nearly three daily, with thousands of daily viewers. Our new articles on Cardinals baseball are posted each and every day – even on Thanksgiving and Christmas! We also developed our first-even Cardinals Prospect Guide and sold out its print run.
Our very busy free message board has over 22,000 posts and our members-only board, with fast and direct access to our staff, has logged over 1,000 comments and questions from Cardinals fans just like you.
In closing, I want to thank the many who stayed with the site and those who re-subscribed here at the new The Cardinal Nation – and to the writers and reporters whose commitment to bring you the news from the Cardinals minor league parks is unparalled.
Those who have yet to join or re-join, please consider it, as your financial support enables us to remain in business, delivering end-to-end, first-hand coverage of the Cardinals system that is more comprehensive than that provided by any other media source.
And most of all, thank you for reading and commenting with us about Cardinals baseball!
Brian Walton
Owner, The Cardinal Nation
Brian@TheCardinalNation.com