Please indulge me as I go over some non-sportsmedia site business…

Dear BSMW Readers,

Here at Boston Sports Media Watch, I want to produce quality content that continues to be valuable for you. To do this, continued funding is important to make the time I put in here worth it to me, (this is after all, something I do on the side, and not my main job) and after looking at different funding sources I came across Kachingle. Kachingle is an innovative social micropayment service that enables readers to easily make ongoing, voluntary micropayments to sites like this one.

Kachingle is simple, user-centric, and a user-controlled alternative to cumbersome subscriptions, paywalls, and pay-per-article plans that some media outlets are considering. It requires virtually no effort on your part – you just become a Kachingler, giving $5 a month through PayPal, and then click once on the Kachingle medallion on our site. No credit cards, no passwords, no separate accounts for every site you visit. Kachingle will keep track of your monthly visits to each of the sites you’ve selected, and at the end of the month, your monthly pay-in to Kachingle will be distributed proportionally among those sites.

My eventual hope is to trim down the number of ads that you’re seeing on the site. This year, income for BSMW is about half of what it was at this time last year, despite the same amount or more ads. I don’t really like looking at them, and would like to bring a cleaner, faster BSMW to you.

I hope you will become a Kachingler, helping to support online journalism’s future, including the time and resource intensive reporting that BSMW produces. After you become a Kachingler, you’ll also be able to share the sites you support with colleagues, friends, and family, and turn them on to the sites you visit. You can join as a Kachingler by “mousing” over the Kachingle Medallion on this page (in the Subscribe box in the upper right) and clicking on “Join Kachingle”.

I’m hoping you’ll consider signing up with Kachingle, and supporting BSMW and other sites with that $5 per month account. Right now the network is fairly small, but growing quickly. Even if you only support this site, that certainly works for me!

For more on Kachingle, check out this post from media writer Steve Outing:

My blog earned $65.08 via crowd-funding

Also see this post from ChicagoTalks.org:

Pay for News, Then Brag About It

I’m also looking at partnering up with another new startup that plans to launch next month. This partnership would result in some intriguing new data and content that should be of interest to readers of BSMW. I hope to have more details on this soon.

Thank you for your continued readership and support. Last week was the eighth anniversary of BSMW – something I totally forgot until today. Eight years is an eternity for a blog, and I couldn’t have made it this long without the support of loyal readers.

Thank you!

Bruce Allen
[email protected]

This a promotional post for season two of AX MEN on History channel. In the near future we’re going to have an AX MEN themed give-away for readers of the site.

Watch the Season 2 premiere TONIGHT, March 2 at 10pm/9c on HISTORY! The AX MEN are back, and they’re bigger, badder and tougher than ever. The first ever non-fiction series about the treacherous life of Pacific Northwest timber cutters, is back for its second season on HISTORY™. Going deeper into the forest, high into the sky and even down into the sea, the new season follows two leading teams from last season along with three new companies, racing to fall the most timber during logging’s most dangerous season.

Visit the official site at www.history.com/axmen and become a fan on Facebook

I wanted to give a shout out to one the newest BSMW Sponsors, Homage Clothing.

These guys have some pretty cool stuff. They sent over a pair of vintage-style Boston sports t-shirts:

The whole setup is pretty neat, the shirts come made with the authentic thin poly/cotton blend that was popular during the ’70′s, but contrary to what you might think with that material, these shirts are clearly well made. Little touches, like the canvas tags hand-pinned to the shirts, or the pack of trading cards and pouch of “Big League Chew” included with the shipment were a cool little bonus. Even the box that the shirts arrived in was distinctive.

If you want a closer look at those two t-shirts, here they are:

Hick From French Lick

Boston Lumber Co.

We’d like to thank Homage Clothing for their support of BSMW!