“It’s frustrating for soccer to not have the exposure that it needs. As media continues to change, it’s getting harder and harder. I just read in Portland they’re removing their beat reporter […]”
-Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, February 26, 2020
Subsidized soccer coverage in Portland is over.
At the end of last season, the Oregonian moved its beat writer off assignment to the NBA, and they don’t plan to replace her. The Portland Mercury removed their main weekly soccer freelancer from off a regular schedule. The Athletic exchanged their local beat writers for a regional one. As it stands, there are no dedicated, independent soccer writers left in Soccer City, USA.
This is all happening at a time when soccer in Portland is more popular than ever. The Timbers have sold out every game since they’ve been in MLS. The Thorns drew an average of just over 20,000 fans per game last season. The product on the field gets better every year, the storylines more dramatic. All while publications act like soccer writing is not bringing them enough interest to warrant dedicated coverage.
During our time at Stumptown Footy, we’ve been producing high-quality journalistic and analytical content for around $2–3 an hour (those of us who were getting paid at all, that is) on a website that was supposed to be just for fans. We are fans, but we’ve always taken pride in our craft. We hold ourselves to high standards, and we feel that we can hold our work up against the work of professionals.
We know there is a market for soccer writing in Portland because we hear people asking for one. Fans have high standards for the writing they want to read. The click-obsessed, ad-revenue-driven business model is destroying journalism. Great publications are failing, local papers across the country are being sold for parts to media conglomerates, and readers aren’t getting the coverage they deserve on the topics they care about.
So we’re doing it ourselves, and it’s up to you to prove us right.
Rose City Review is going to be everything we love to do. Ridiculous posts and in-depth analysis, alongside the best inside access to the players an outsider can get. Who knows, we might even launch into a non-soccer topic now and again.
Some content each week will always be free; the rest will be accessible to subscribers for just $2 a month. There won’t be a comment section, because comment sections are a shoddy facsimile of a real community. Instead, we want to expand the ways we interact with our audience away from the din. One place that’s going to happen is a dedicated Discord channel where subscribers will be able to chat with each other about the games and the latest news, as well as talk directly to us. You’ll be able to ask us all the burning questions on your minds and let us know what you’d like to see covered.
Above all, we want to do the work that we’re passionate about. We love Portland soccer, and we think it deserves our best effort. We hope you’ll join us.