Broad Street Hockey needs your help

You’re probably aware, but if you’re not, Vox Media/SB Nation announced last Friday that they will be shutting down nearly their entire NHL network at the end of February, including us here at Broad Street Hockey. The news came as a surprise to us, even though conditions here at the blog have worsened over the past year or so.

We and our friends at other NHL blogs were pressured from above to focus on clickbait, forget about quality and focus on quantity and clicks. Nothing was more important than making sure the company generated as much advertising revenue as possible. And in a vacuum, Vox Media wanting to maximize the money earned from our site and everyone else makes perfect sense. In a vacuum, we also want clicks! We want to be the place for Flyers fans to get insight, analysis and fun. But we want to do it with quality, as we always have. That’s been hard to do over the last several years because we’ve been asked to do more with less.

For reference, most of our writers here at BSH get $100 a month for two articles a week. That’s $12.50 per article. And we are one of the lucky sites; As a large market with incredible readers, we got to work with one of the NHL Network’s biggest budgets. Some of our colleagues on other sites were writing for $50 a month. Some were not paid at all. The point here, the reason I’m telling you all this, is because it’s important to understand that none of us are here for the money. We were here because we love doing this, we love this silly team, and most of all we love all of you and what we’ve created here together.

That’s why we’re determined to keep this community alive.

What will it look like? I do not know. I don’t know where we’re going, what it’s going to be called, or when we’ll get there. But we’re going to get there. I know this because we have incredibly smart, skilled, well-connected people in the SB Nation NHL family (like Taylor Baird in Defending Big D and our very own inimitable Steph Driver) who will surely find us a new home where we can continue to bring you the best fan-driven Flyers content.

This is where you come in. If you have time, we would appreciate it if you could answer this short survey and tell us a little about who you are. Knowing who makes up our community helps us know what we need to move forward and how we can make sure we bring you what you want as we move into the future of Broad Street Hockey.

Wasn’t going to go quietly, friends. So stay with us.