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CoBL Coverage + Fundraising Update (Sep. 24, 2024)

09/24/2024, 11:45am EDT

By Josh Verlin

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Hey there, CoBL readers —

With the 2024-25 preseason officially underway and the countdown to the regular season under six weeks, I felt it was an appropriate time to write a little letter and let you all know what to expect from the coming months, as well as provide an update on our fundraising efforts.

During last year’s season preview months (October/November), we ran 85 individual high school team preview stories, eight high school league previews, three dozen Big 5 preview stories, five small-college features, and another dozen round-up and non-local features — right around 140 stories in total in a 60-day span.

My hope is that we’ll be able to produce a similar amount of content this preseason, though in somewhat different ratios.

One thing you’ll notice about this preseason is there will be less of an emphasis on Division I coverage; we’ll make sure we write about each of the Big 5 programs, men’s and women’s, as we approach November 4, but likely only one feature on each program, instead of three or four. Instead, we’ll save some of the interesting Big 5 player features for during the season, focusing more on that angle of covering the city rather than basic game recaps.

We’ll be devoting more attention to high school team previews: I’d like to get at least 100 different teams featured on the site before Dec. 1, including a mix of the annual powerhouses and some programs we haven’t gotten to write about as much in recent memory.

We also want to make sure we’re getting to a little more of the area’s small-college teams both in the preseason and during the season. The area has a number of high-quality Division II and Division III squads that we want to be sure to shine more of a light on during this season.

(All of our preseason coverage will be found at this link; that page will be more built out by the end of this week)

But in order to do all of that, we still need your help, and we need it badly. For those who are unaware, our full-time journalism staff is currently down to one, and we also will not be able to afford a nighttime editor this season, so there’s much more on my plate this season than there was previously. As we don’t have the steady income at the moment to hire someone else of quality full-time, we’re leaning heavily on a group of experienced freelancers — Owen McCue, Joseph Santoliquito, Rich Flanagan, Andrew Robinson and others — to help us keep the coverage bar high.

We’re also working behind-the-scenes with a number of high school and college students who we hope can contribute to the organization before long, as part of our non-profit mission to train the next generation of sportswriters.

Back in February, CoBL announced its first-ever dedicated fundraising campaign. Our goal was to raise $50,000 during the calendar year of 2024, all of which would go towards paying our freelance writers to cover hoops during the 2024-25 season. At the same time, we announced — and have now implemented — a pay rate raise for all of our freelancers, to better compensate them for the hours and hours they spend on every story that appears on the website.

And while our events side continues to grow, led by our awesome events’ director Steph Garafolo, the reality is that continually rising costs across the board — and our hesitation to charge too high of a price for teams to participate or for spectators to come watch — mean that those events generate less net revenue than they might appear.

As of Sep. 24, 2024, we are currently at $24,000 raised from the Philadelphia basketball community. That’s just shy of halfway to our goal, with three months remaining in the year. If we don’t reach our goal, that means we won’t be able to cover as much basketball as we want. That’s dozens or hundreds of stories that go untold, which has a real impact on the young men and women who are trying to use basketball as a path to get to college, and to give them a boost throughout their lives.

To help CoBL reach its goal, please consider donating to us through one of our various channels. Every dollar helps!!!

We have PayPal for one-time or recurring donations, a Patreon page for smaller monthly donations, accounts on Venmo (@CoBL215) and CashApp ($cityofbasketballlove), or you can just send us a check, made out to CoBL, to 614 Fairview Road, Narberth PA, 19072. Put “donation” in the notes and it’ll be automatically counted towards our contributor campaign.

We have a great group of freelancers who want to work for CoBL as much as we can afford to use them. But they can’t work for free. Please help us reach our goal and continue to cover basketball into 2025-26 and beyond.

Thanks,

Josh Verlin

City of Basketball Love
Co-founder, Editor-In-Chief